turfequiptech: Since I did participate in the hijack, I will apologize for that. Seems like you are accusing me of being an instigator in it, and that's a little unfair since I came in late. But since I never responded to your original question and did throw fuel on the fires of the hijack by responding only to the hijacked portion, I will try to make amends and respond to your original question now.
Since you are in a business, I would recommend staying with a conventional oil that you can buy off-the shelf and on sale. My opinion is that, especially if you are going to do annual changes, the value will be in the better conventional HDEO oils. My own experience and observations are that you would not be able to tell much of a difference between the upper end conventionals and a higher end syn blend at a short OCI. If you had some operational situations that required specific performance improvements in the oils, extreme hot weather or extreme cold are two examples, then the benefits of a syn blend or syn might better pass the cost-effectiveness test. Or a long OCI, of course.
I run a small farm business and that is the philosophy I have been following (more or less), even though I stretch the OCIs out longer than you (at least the times, I doubt I do as many hours as you might).
That said, I have recently moved up to a syn blend (Rotella T5 10W30) but I did that for the purpose of improving cold start performance without going the whole distance to a synthetic. This oil is (or will be as soon as the transition is complete), in a variety of tractors, small engines, a car and two trucks (gas & diesel). One grade, one oil in everything. That did require some compromises in certain areas to find one oil that met all the specs.. or at least didn't stray too far off the reservation.
While your thread may have been hijacked, I hope that you found the hijack somewhat interesting at least. I did! ( : < )
Since you are in a business, I would recommend staying with a conventional oil that you can buy off-the shelf and on sale. My opinion is that, especially if you are going to do annual changes, the value will be in the better conventional HDEO oils. My own experience and observations are that you would not be able to tell much of a difference between the upper end conventionals and a higher end syn blend at a short OCI. If you had some operational situations that required specific performance improvements in the oils, extreme hot weather or extreme cold are two examples, then the benefits of a syn blend or syn might better pass the cost-effectiveness test. Or a long OCI, of course.
I run a small farm business and that is the philosophy I have been following (more or less), even though I stretch the OCIs out longer than you (at least the times, I doubt I do as many hours as you might).
That said, I have recently moved up to a syn blend (Rotella T5 10W30) but I did that for the purpose of improving cold start performance without going the whole distance to a synthetic. This oil is (or will be as soon as the transition is complete), in a variety of tractors, small engines, a car and two trucks (gas & diesel). One grade, one oil in everything. That did require some compromises in certain areas to find one oil that met all the specs.. or at least didn't stray too far off the reservation.
While your thread may have been hijacked, I hope that you found the hijack somewhat interesting at least. I did! ( : < )
