The important thing about synthetic oil I don't hear anyone mentioning is the fact that typical lawnmowers are air cooled, if you use your mower in extreme conditions especially very hot weather or very heavy loads very tall grass or both the synthetic oil will make a very big difference in the service life you get from your engine.If you are a homeowner just mowing your lawn and you're done in 20 minutes to an hour you probably will not see these benefits as being worth it . I have worked 25 years at a golf course as a superintendent and mechanic,for the equipment we run daily,they work hard,and no breaks,this is equipment that is not that cheap and even the cheaper things like golf carts and small mowers the synthetic oil more than pays for itself in service life and protection from over heating.As for synthetic oil being so expensive yes it is expensive ordinarily,but my local Napa dealer has a sale every May and last year I was able to buy about 10 cases of full synthetic Napa oil for 3.49 a quart,The year before it was 329 year before that it was 299 you just need to keep your eyes open and buy stuff when it's on sale,I stock up and buy a seasons worth of oil or more. I have to change the oil on 35 golf carts,several vehicles,and over two dozen piece of equipment some of which holds several gallons of oil so getting the stuff on sale for us being a small business is very important.The main oil I use is Schaeffers X 7000 in 15w40,it comes in 6 gallon jugs per case. It costs me about 120 a case,and with my five hundred dollar order I get three oil samples and free shipping. I usually use the Napa 10w30 synthetic in the golf carts,and small air cooled engines that are not very expensive.in my larger diesels and liquid cooled gassers I use Schaeffers for the most part.If you have a turbocharger on your diesel tractor or mower,both which I have,synthetic oil protects the turbo against idiot operators who shut down a hot engine before idling it a minute. People don't believe me when I tell him I can get 4 to 5000 hours out of the kohler command 25,but I do and it's because of the oil and because I keep things clean like the air fins,shrouds,and air filter.The last Kohler I had to rebuild was using about 6 to 8 ounces of oil every week if I didn't care I probably could've ran the engine another couple years like that,when I tore it down I discovered the reason it was consuming oil is because it had been so hot so many times,just from running 8hrs a day on 95 degree plus days over the last 13 yrs,that the tension in the rings was gone,the ring gap was fine,the cylinder walls were out only .004 ,for that many hours it was amazing.I did bore to +.025,and new gaskets,intake valve seals,and grind the valves,and that's it,I've put another trouble free 300 hrs on it,and The beauty of running synthetic oil is you can run it for the full recommended interval and not cut your interval and a half for extreme conditions like a high temperature.In my opinion anyone running a liquid cooled diesel or gas engine,you run it hard,and your weather is extremely hot or cold and plans on keeping it for more than five years,it's well worth synthetic oil.For anyone running an air cooled engine twin cylinder,these engines are between 1200 and $3000 now,and most only hold 2 to 3 quarts of oil and all of them have a 100 Hr oil change interval or longer ,exc vanguards which is 50,for the small money difference I think it's worth the money if you plan on keeping it awhile. That's my 2 cents and I'm sticking to it
No doubt that trend will trickle down to lawnmower engines.
