Originally Posted By: Clevy
Originally Posted By: bchannell
Well, here's how I look at it. There's no real argument that syn oil will protect better than dino, assuming cost is no issue. While syn in a non-filtered engine doesn't extend the OCI, it will protect better. The key word is "better". How much better than adequate do you want and how much are you willing to pay for? You have to answer that yourself. Let's assume you want the best protection. Then you want syn oil in your OPE, and since syn oils aren't affected by depletion of VII's, then you should pick the oil with the low temp rating you're most likely to see. In other words, a snow blower might be better off with 0W30, and lawn mower would probably like 10W30 or 15W40 better. If you want to use 5W40 in a lawnmower, then there's no real reason not to. Even when starting in hot weather, you'll get better cold lubrication. I'm a believer that you won't live long enough to see the benefits of 5W40 over 15W40, in any weather, when wear and engine longevity are your goals.
The long and short of it is, you can use any of these, and many other oils, and be just fine.
Whoever the first person was to say that small engines can run on almost anything was absolutely right, and I've said it myself many times. These things are just not all that picky. It seems to me that engines run with good syn oil and changed at proper intervals, will last longer than if they had been fed dino oils, but I often wonder if it's only because the guys who care enough to use syn, are also keeping up on their maintenance much more than guys (on average) who use dino oil and just don't care enough to do all the proper maintenance. I have many neighbors who just mow, blow, trim and cut and almost never do any maintenance to their OPE, and use the cheapest oil they can find, and use it for a loooong time.
Synthetic oil is better? Interesting.
I own 14 160cc 5.5hp air compressors and 7 generators that vary from 3500-6500 watts.
A few of those compressors have better than 10000 hours on them. In my experience fuel dilution can be a problem. The fuel takes quite some time to evaporate out of the crankcase. So I change the oil in all my machines at 100 hours or 2 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks on the daily run stuff in the winter.
So there is absolutely no point buying a synthetic. I can't extend the run times on it because of fuel dilution so sure syn might be "better" it paying extra for it makes no sense.
Conventional rotella in the summer and the cheapest 5w-30 I can find,usually the 5 gallon supertech pails in winter.
I've got decades of experience using these machines to make a living. If there was any benefit to running a synthetic and by benefit I mean saving money in maintenance costs then I guarantee I'd be using it but thus far I've seen none.
Oh and I use mos2 every second oil change in everything. It amazing how much easier the compressors are to pull start when its -35 with an mos2 treated engine.
But please,if you can show me how synthetic is somehow better then please show me. Any of your small motors got 10000 hours on them? Without a rebuild?
You have to remember I said "assuming cost is no issue", but I bow to your "decades of experience".
