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Retailers set aside lots of space for aftermarket additives. It's a big industry with large margins. Most of these products are 90%+ common commodity basestock plus solvent with an overload of one or another "special feature" additives, sold at a premium. They can help in the few areas they reinforce but might not be what you need. They can also interact with your existing oil in ways that aren't good. Viscosity changes out of range, TBN drop, even components that'll increase acidity. Don't play garage chemist. You'll have more predictable luck topping up with a fresh quart of the same oil you're using now. If that means draining or pulling a quart from the dipstick tube, do it. If the vehicle has been sitting, exchange the quart then drive at operating temp for 20minutes. The fresh quart will bring back the additive package and the driving will burn off water and any unburnt fuel that breaks it down.
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195
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