I don't know about anybody else, but I am now quite confused when it comes to synthetic motor oils.
When it comes to conventional motor oils, I think because of VOAs and UOAs at this site, I have a pretty good idea of which conventional motor oils (of those that have been tested) that I would be willing to use. In fact, I think there is one stand-out that I could choose and it would surely be as good as about any other.
But I am now completely confused when it comes to synthetic oils. Some VOAs and UOAs of various synthetic oils, such as Redline, Royal Purple, Mobil 1, and others vary so much that I no longer know what to think. And the German Castrol, which as far as I know has consistently posted good UOAs, is very hard to find-otherwise I might well use it, at least in the wintertime. I have seen sensational UOAs of Redline, and UOAs of Redline that don't look so good. I have seen mostly not so good UOAs of Royal Purple, and there seem to be unending questions about Mobil 1. Amsoil seems to post good UOAs fairly consistently.
Am I the only one who feels this way, or are there more of you who find the synthetic oil situation confusing?
It seems to me that with all of these VOAs and UOAs, we should be able to say-yes, that synthetic oil is always great in UOAs, and that is my choice.
And there seems to be a real reluctance on the part of people here to test any 'synthetic' motor oils that are actually Group III. Maybe they are not 'true' synthetic oils, whatever that means. But unless we test a motor oil how do we know if it is any good? What if one of those Group III motor oils was 90%-99% of the quality of a synthetic and a dollar or more less a quart?