It's not so much that I believe Walmart's oil is better, more so the price point. The standards for synthetic motor oil in the US are pretty high, so it's really more important to do the oil changes regularly and on time (when the maintenance minder tells you, at least) than what brand or "special type" of oil it is. The "change your oil every 6 months" in the day of modern synthetics is also just a gimmick to get you to buy more oil, as synthetic oil is incredibly stable when not going through heat cycles. You could use the high-mileage oil if it gives you peace of mind, but I don't think it's necessary (especially at your mileage).
Regarding oil filters, I used to get the Honda A01 filters made by Filtech for as long as I could find them at a reasonable price, but now that they've been discontinued and are like hens teeth, I just make sure to get a quality filter. Honda has since switched to the A02 made by Fram (meh) and A03 filters made by Mahle Tennex. The A03's are marginally better constructed, but still nowhere near as good as the A01's. Napa Gold/Wix are great filters: cheap, and very easy to find. Recently I've been getting Denso filters from RockAuto (due to price) and they are built like tanks, and the filter dissections I've seen show they're well built on the inside as well. At the end of the day, it's still more important to do the service on time more than the brand of filter you get. Any filter will more than likely survive the ~4500-6500 miles we get on a typical oil change using the maintenance minder. Hope that helps!
Like the comment about the gimmicky change oil every 6 months. I remember hearing people tell me that motor oil companies were telling car owners that the oil goes bad in a year just sitting on the shelf in an unopened bottle.
I thought this has to be a scam to get people to buy more motor oil, especially when so much oil now is full synthetic. I remember when synthetic oil first came around and we were all told it is superior because it never breaks down and that was under load and high heat in turbocharged cars driven hard on a racetrack.
So how can that same synthetic oil be going bad either on a shelf or even in an engine of a collector car that gets either no mileage driven on it, or maybe a few hundred miles a year? The engine is sealed there are anti corrosion inhibitors in the oil, it is under no pressure, no heat and no load at all.
I was talking to a sales representative at a car meet from a major oil manufacturer and of course he was not able to explain how the oil would go bad sitting there in a years time. I had the same discussion with my mechanic.
I am no Automotive engineer or scientist but it really seems that some clever marketing person thought
Well there are probably millions of collector cars out there sitting in storage or someone's garage and they get little if any mileage driven on them at all and so they rarely need to change their oil. Since these people love their collector cars so much and want only the best for them and can afford to have these expensive cars, let's scare them into thinking the oil is rotting away and we can sell an extra jug of oil per year for each and every one of these millions of collector cars, that will be a lot of sales we were not getting before!
I remember when alot of processed junk food with tons of perservatives in them, like potato chips started getting expiration dates put on them. I also recall a youtube video of a lady carrying a McDonalds hamburger around in her purse for months and it never rotted...
