It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "top gear"
saying something like:

Oh he exists alright, and as Doctor Evil recommends use cheap supermarket
oil for 40,000 miles as you all know the answers, and would know this is
what is best.

Cheap supermarket oil has a place in the market - in SOCs that lose/use
a bit of oil anyway and aren't worth spending a lot of money on.

I use fleet oils of a decent standard in my cars, vans and bikes and
have done for years. If it weren't for the oil contamination inherent in
diesel engines, I would certainly use synthetics in them, but since I
wouldn't trust the extended drain interval recommended by Ford in the
case of my Transit (some 14,000miles), the benfits of synthetic will
continue to elude me. In that particular case I prefer the peace of mind
of simply changing oil and filter at 6000miles.

You see, I know all about synthetics and fully support their use where
appropriate; but your insistence that they fit everything is, to repeat,
misleading ********.

As an illustration...

One of my bikes had over 200,000 miles up on the engine when it lost
compression. A stripdown revealed the rings had past their sellby date
and had simply got a bit tired.
On inspection, I found the pistons and bores had no discernable wear on
them from new and could go together quite happily with new rings.

Oh, by the way, that engine was only ever run on mineral 20/50 all of
its life, changed every 2-3000miles, and worked hard, it being a
despatch bike.
--

Dave