Hi George,
I used to work for Castrol so i'm going to give you a very biased view.
I have seen many tests done on engines using different gradients of oil. There are huge differences between brands even when the viscocity (i.e. 5w-40) is the same.
My advice would be to go for the best. I know you're after a bargain but if you've seen the differences to engine wear that we use to test on with engines running for 300k miles on Castrol and some of its competitors, it worth not going down the cheap road.
Castrol Edge (fully synthetic and sometimes also know as Castrol SLX - same stuff but SLX is no longer a consumer brand) would be my choice. For high mileage cars, i might consider Magnatec (semi-synthetic).
Castrol actually works with VAG and other manufacturers to build an oil optimised for these engines and hence are filled from factory with Castrol.
Mobil 1 would be the only other brand i would consider.
Oliver
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Last edited by Oli18; 21st November 2009 at 01:17 PM.
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