This is all the more reason why you should be jumping on the
Amazon Pennzoil deals when they come up!
In that thread,
you said that seal conditioning to prevent leaks was more important than cost. But when I last did that deal, I got 5 qt jugs of Euro L for $14.13 a piece! My recent
Castrol 5W-40 deal at O'Reilly came out to $18.48 per 5 qt jug (when factoring the free top-quality MGS filters).
Using the parameters you laid out (6 years of 17 oil changes/year) doing that Amazon deal would have saved you:
$18.63 - $14.13 = $4.51/jug savings * 17 oil changes/yr * 6 yrs = $460 saved vs. using ST!
With that kind of money, you would have been able to get any leaks fixed + had the peace of mind knowing that you were getting superior wear protection with the Euro certs. (And, as previously discussed, fixing the typical leaks on an Odyssey isn't expensive).
I have absolutely no problem with Super Tech 5W-30. I've used it a lot myself, it has Dexos certification, and the HTHS is 3.1 (plenty for my applications).
So, why did I quit using it? It's too expensive!
Given the great deals to be had on Euro oils and the fact that ST seems to rarely ever be on sale, I just can't justify throwing money away on what turns out to be kind of an expensive oil.
Never thought I'd consider ST to be expensive, but compared to the other deals, it really isn't that cheap-- in fact, I'd say it's a little pricey!
Factor in the difference in the quality of the oils, and I'd say ST is a poor value.