Ok as for the "shortage" of oil dont worry what you have seen is the fact that they are changing some packaging but for the most part the distributors to most of the auto parts lines are renegotiating distribution contracts. But for the most part there is no problem but at the bottom of this post is a link to Havoline and if you read the history of it from its beginning to date its very interesting.
BT as for Amsoil or Havoline or Mobil 1 being the best oil. I for one will NOT purchase anything from Amsoil, that company can dry up and disapear for all I care.
I had a custome who bought a new car and with manufacturers endorsement he simply broke the engine in on the car company brand oil(note I will not disclose the brand of oil nor car) he short changed it at 500 miles then ran it through a 2k then 3 more 2500 oil changes then bought a case of Amsoil and put it in. Now this car was Pristine and never pampered nor beat on. He started out with Amsoil and dronve it thru the first oil change (2500) then changed it again then Amsoil dealer AND company told him to simply leave it in and do oil analysis (which I do agree on) and when it came back as properly "worn" he would change it. Well at 62k it developed a bad tick, and was taken to dealer and it still had warranty (as he had bought exteneded warranty)to75k and they proceeded to dissassemble it and found the cam lifters worn to the point of having holes in the bottoms (oh and its was not a GM product) so upon further inspection they found all of the rod bearings completely worn out and inside of the oil pump looked like it had sand ran thrugh it but engine was clean. So he calls Amsoil and told them of his findings from dealer and they told him he should have changed it every 2k instead of doing analysis (which he had their letter reccomending it on their letterhead) ans told him to suck it up and buy a new car.
Well his other car his wife drove was still going on the dealership oil and had never had Amsoil and had a consecutive number right next to his car.
The dealer told him this was going to be warantied but not to use Amsoil in it,,, the car now has 200k+ with plain old Valvoline in the crankcase. The dealer told them that the only time they had ever seen this was when certain brands of oil were used(never degrading his oils choice). So he figured that Amsoil might atleast explain how it was his super duper oil in his car wasnt working and got a 2 yr royal run around with no help.this isnt the first engine I have seen trashed by the socalled perfect oil Amsoil.
Now I have $20k plus race engines running palin old Shell Rotella T 30 weight for extreem high RPMS and even on NOS and never have had an oil related failure. I use Kendal GT1 5W40 Full synthetic in my prexnt new engine in my 78 C10(Hyd roller 355) and even have some lower speed engines that drag usingit with great results.
For the most part if the oil has an ASTM/SAE rating its good enough for pretty much any engine it has a rating for. I can also tell you that WalMArt Super Tech is supplied by Quaker State which is a SOPUS (Shell Oil Products US) owned name and befroe SOPUS had it Pensoils did and before that Ashland had it and beforethat Cen-Pe-Co did. The big Q is simply a name on a bottle.
another thing to remember is that for themost part ANY oil out there, except for Brand specific (re synthetics) compnenets , cna be made from base refined oil stock and the only difference is mainly the additive package ,kind of like gasoline, the base product is simply about 70 octane white gas(re unleaded with no additives) then the company who buys it adds or has their additive package added to it. Here in souther Indiana Marathon has the majority of underground piping infrastructure and a friend of mine drives for local Marathoin Distributor and sees all of the brands there and the place they pick up has the additives ready to put in the base product ( he has even had to put a hose in the tank when they had valving problems to add the additives/identifiers).
Basicly from a machinist view point if you change oil regularly and use a brand name oil you will go long miles, period. I have friend who buys the cheapest he can find and has never had an oil related failure yet and most of his cars have over 150 k on them.
Use what you want and change regularly. good Luck
Lee
http://www.havoline.com/about/history.html
Joining the New Oil War, the STS runs Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30, the truck (towing duty) runs Pz Truck/SUV 5W-30 blend, and my boat engine, a tricked '70 Olds 455, runs Pz LongLife 15W-40. The boat engine is pushing 2,000 hours with a short stick, and is as clean and tight today as when I built it in '98. Oil changes, 7.5 qt., occur at 100 hours on the clock. (Calculate 2,000 hours at around 2,450 RPM average (car, 75 mph?) and you come up with around 145,000+ miles.) All 3 engines are absolutely clean inside. Instead of snake oil, use a good quality modern oil, change it and the filter according to the manual, and may your engine live long and prosper.
