Multigrade Oils in Mowers

[camrydriver111]

In the "Post your latest small engine oil change" a lot of people are using multi-grade car oils in mowers.

I know most mowers will run on whatever oil you have. However, is there any advantage of using those kinds of oils in a mower?

It seems like most BITOGers gravitate towards them. In my limited experience they seem to be burned off really easily.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I use whatever random left over 30 grade I have laying around in the lawn mower. However, I believe my parents' Yardman calls for 10w-30.

 

[old1]

I have always, and still do, use Straight 30 HD oil in the warm months, and 5/30 in my snowblower. Maaany years ago, they used to call for 5/20 in the snowblowers, then you couldn't find it(at least not easily) so the recommendations changed to 5/30. Now that 5/20 everywhere, I may go back to it again, although 5/30 has worked fine for many years. Multi grade oils are not recommended by B&S unless full synthetic. Some other OEM's are different.

 

[Eddie]

B&S now recommends 5w30 Synthetic and 10w30 dino as the preferred oils for all their engines. I run 10w30 in my B&S 20 HP twin and see very little drop in dip stick level over 25 hours at full throttle. Ed

 

[tig1]

I use M1 10-30 in all my OPE. No burnoff.

 

[BigD1]

Was using Pennzoil 10W-30 SN, and I had to add a little bit after every mow. Mower was pretty much drinking it. Changed it over to Kohler dual rated 10W-30, and I have only added oil once since Spring. Picked up some Briggs & Stratton SAE 30 that Walmart had on clearance for $4 for 1.5 quart jugs, and that's all I am using from now on once the Kohler oil is gone. Should have never used the car motor oil in the first place. Hopefully I did not gunk up the piston too much with that yellow bottle.

 

[barlowc]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
I use whatever random left over 30 grade I have laying around in the lawn mower.

I used to do the same in my Toro walk-behind mower's B&S. In my case, everything I had was 5W-30 full synthetic. I checked oil level periodically to ensure it wasn't burning off and getting low.

 

[Kamele0N]

I am/was using everything in sae 40range....from 15W-10W-5W....

I quit using 15w40 dino.....due it was chewed up too quickly ( air cooled engine(s) ). After short time engine started to burn that dino oil...to the degree that it was too smelly....

Now with semi-syn and sintetic oils...oil consumption almost dissapeared

 

[NormanBuntz]

If you have any name brand mower or lawn tractor made in the past 6-8 years, almost all of them call for a multi=grade synthetic oil. In my experience, multi-grade conventional oils in OPE burn off quickly, while synthetics don't.

 

[Astro_Guy]

I find it easier to pull the starter cord when using 5w30 or 5w40 in the cooler months. This is especially true on my Craftsman chipper / vac which lives outdoors in the shed and can get started at or below freezing in the fall. This machine has a 4.5 HP Tecumseh flathead that goes thru a lot of oil, so I will be switching to a 15w40 this fall. Oil consumption is better with 5w40 synthetics than straight SAE 30 dino up to about 70 ambient; after that it is about the same.

 

[2cool]

I have posted at least 20 times extolling the virtue of 15W-40 for my Craftsman riding mower with a B&S Intek single Cylinder. Never had an issue, and it's been 8 years on the 15W-40. I don't want to stock different oils if I can avoid it, so the decision is to use 15W-40 in the new push mower, or switch all of the other stuff to 10W-30 HDEO, most likely T5.
Point is, multi-grade oils aren't an issue for modern OPE. Conventional seems too burn off more than synthetic, but does protect the engine at the very least, adequately.

 

[mkosem]

I've been using multigrade HDEO in all my OPE stuff for a long time. These days its mostly 5w40 stuff in everything. Years ago, it was 15w40 for everything except for winter equipment - which got 10w30. My eldest piece of 4-cycle equipment this moment is a >20 year old Murray mower with a Briggs Classic 3.5. The deck has seen better days, but the mower still starts on the first pull every time and the engine has never been disassembled beyond removing the carb to rebuild it. Would it run just as well using the SAE30 ND it originally requested? Who knows.

I've probably trash picked and rebuilt 20+ mowers with roughly the same power plant over the course of my life, and definitely come across a fair share of them filled with a gelatinous black sludge I presume to be their original fill that still run startlingly well, so I don't presume these particular ones to be particularly oil sensitive. Based on that, and the price of HDEO, I just use what has worked well for me.

--Matt