Honda "Factory Fill" Oil for OPE

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engineerscott

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Now I know that most OPE engines are shipped without oil. Perhaps some of the larger engines (say on a 7kW generator for instance) might be filled from the factory, but I suspect not.

When I got my last Honda mower about 10 years ago, it did come with a small bottle of Honda branded oil. Also, I suspect that Honda might instruct their dealers to fill their OPE that they sell with Honda oil (I don't know this for a fact but it sounds possible).

The root of my question is this - In their cars, Honda is rather fond of a high moly break-in oil as their factor fill. This has been the case for quite some time and as far as I know Honda is still using a high moly oil for break-in.

Question - Anyone know if Honda likes to use a high moly break-in oil for their OPE products? If so, anyone know where you can get this oil or what the closest over the counter name brand oil might be? Is the high moly oil Honda uses as factory fill for their autos available from the dealer?

Thanks,
 
I can't answer your question, but I've used Amsoil HDD 5w-30 in my GX620 engine for a few years now. I broke it in with PYB 10w-30 for the first 50hrs.
 
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Honda has switched out the moly for Boron in their new oils, so don't worry about it, just use a decent quality oil with in grade and spec of the manual. I think moly is more hype than a necessity. I have seen great UOA's with or w/out it. Just use a good quality oil.
 
To answer your question, I work at a Honda OPE dealership. No honda units are shipped with oil anymore. The dealer uses whichever bulk oil they have.

We use Mohawk 30W, and 10W30 in the Honda Snowblowers.
 
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There are some break-in additives on the market like this one from Red Line Oil:

http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?pid=121&pcid=1

Knowing Red line, it probably has a boat load of moly in addition to the increased ZDDP.

But I think such additives are unnecessary. Just change the oil 3 times in the first 10-12 hours and use a top-oil in at least every other tankful during the same time.
 
Thanks guys. Now that you mention it I now remember someone mentioning that Honda doesn't ship oil with their mowers anymore. I wasn't aware that Honda had shifted away from moly in their break-in oil.
 
Originally Posted By: mechjames
To answer your question, I work at a Honda OPE dealership. No honda units are shipped with oil anymore. The dealer uses whichever bulk oil they have.

We use Mohawk 30W, and 10W30 in the Honda Snowblowers.


X2. When we prep new Honda engines they usually get Auto Zone 10W30. The bottle of OEM oil goes in the bag for the customer to use.
 
When I bought the Honda HRX mower, I was surprised it came with a bottle (red) of Honda 10w-30. I always got a straight grade oil with the previous mowers.
Anyway I used that 10w-30 for most of the 1st summer, and since I been using whatever leftover in the jug from a motorcycle.
So it's had Rotella 15w-40, and T6 Rotella 5w-40 synthetic for most of it's run time.
This year, I'll see how it does with Amsoil 20w-50, but I feel leery about it. Just seem more right to sticking with a 5w for start-up flow, and the T6 did fine last summer. It's like if it did fine, why am I going away from that. We'll, maybe I'll think about it more later, or maybe I'll say screw it and dump a fill of the Amsoil 20w-50 just for kicks.

(add) I added a dose of MMO in the gas can (2-1/2 gallon can) a few months ago for the OPE. The mower was mostly used then for the leaves on the lawn, but not getting much use now. And since it hasn't started for about a month, it will probably tomorrow for a few leaves and to even out the lawn. Poor little thing needs a run. I might give it a bath (steam cleaning)too.
 
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The Honda Genuine stuff is API SM, Energy Conserving, GF-4 starburst. I'm sure you can get it at a dealer and I think I've seen it at Home Depot for the equivalent of $12 a quart.
oil003.jpg
 
wow - at $12/qt Honda is making a few bucks.
Wonder if Yamaha and others do the same.
I don't run Harley oil in my Harley. I understand it used to be Sunnoco stuff, now Citgo stuff. Yeah it had the Harley oil in it when I bought it. I was adding just a tad of oil 1-2 times a month to maintain the level. When I changed to Amsoil, I can go for months before adding a little oil. I still have a few gallons of the Amsoil 20w-50, and when that's gone, I'll then decide if I keep using it or try something else.
The 20w cold start flow just doesn't set right to me.
 
Yeah, I was not really consider using Honda brand oil in an piece of OPE on a regular basis. What I was really interested in knowing was if Honda was still advocating a high moly oil only as a break in oil. This used to be something of a religion with Honda's engineers, at least on the automotive side. Their factory fill break in oil for their cars was somewhat famous for being fairly heavily loaded with molybdenum disulfide and they were pretty serious about you not changing that oil until the break in period had passed. Also, as recently as a few years ago Honda was campaigning against some of the proposed oil standards that would reduce molybdenum disulfide content.

I've got a Chonda powered generator that I'm about to break in and I was thinking of trying to get some Honda high moly break in oil (which btw is not the same Honda branded oil you normally buy at the dealer) or failing that finding another off the shelf Group II/III break in oil with a similar moly content. Somewhere around here is an oil analysis of some of the factory fill Honda oil showing the higher moly content.

I'm probably going to way more trouble than I should on the break in oil, but that's what most of us do here, right? I was thinking that since the machining on the Chonda engines might be a bit cruder that current Honda standards that it might actually benefit from the added moly more than most engines.
 
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If you can't find some high moly oil, you might consider picking up some lubro moly mos2 treatment. I use this additive in all my small engines regularly at a 4% to 5% dose, although i'm sure you could concentrate that accordingly for a first fill. Napa sells it.
 
Originally Posted By: dakota99
If you can't find some high moly oil, you might consider picking up some lubro moly mos2 treatment. I use this additive in all my small engines regularly at a 4% to 5% dose, although i'm sure you could concentrate that accordingly for a first fill. Napa sells it.


Thanks, that's a good idea. Hadn't thought about Lubro Moly.
 
Originally Posted By: flatlandtacoma
The Honda Genuine stuff is API SM, Energy Conserving, GF-4 starburst. I'm sure you can get it at a dealer and I think I've seen it at Home Depot for the equivalent of $12 a quart.
oil003.jpg



$12US a quart? A rip off.

Our list price is $8.95CDN a quart, and you can usually get a little bit more of a discount if you are a landscaper/contractor with an account with us.
 
Originally Posted By: mechjames
Originally Posted By: flatlandtacoma
The Honda Genuine stuff is API SM, Energy Conserving, GF-4 starburst. I'm sure you can get it at a dealer and I think I've seen it at Home Depot for the equivalent of $12 a quart.
oil003.jpg



$12US a quart? A rip off.

Our list price is $8.95CDN a quart, and you can usually get a little bit more of a discount if you are a landscaper/contractor with an account with us.


The problem is, if Honda used a break-in oil in their outdoor power equipment that wouldn't be it (at least if what they do on the auto side is any guide).

On the automotive side, the factory fill in a Honda engine has about 400 ~ 600 ppm Moly (not sure what form that moly is in as oil analysis doesn't differentiate). OTOH, if you do an oil analysis on Honda oil that the dealer will sell you, you'll find little to no moly in the mix. So, clearly Honda likes to break in their automotive engines with a relatively high moly oil, but they don't seem to advocate its continual use after the break-period.

BTW, I did verify that Honda is still using a relatively high moly break-in oil as their factory fill, as least as recently as 2010.

Incidentally, $8.95 CDN is still outrageous for what is probably a fairly pedestrian Group II or III oil. I'd pay $8 bucks for a one time break-in oil (it'd still be way high but I'd do it for a one time thing) but no way I'd pay that on a continual basis when I could get a truly outstanding POE with a great ad pak like Redline for less. Not that I am advocating Redline for OPE use.
 
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FWIW: Just recently purchased a brand new gx160 honda general purpose engine. I've used it to disassemble it with my two sons as home project to show them how a small engine works. There was a yellow tag attached to the engine that said that the unit was shipped with no oil inside, and to ensure that it was filled up with the proper oil before starting. I looked down the filler hole and could see that there was a small amount of oil inside. I drained it out. (a few ounces). Then I thought that maybe this was some special break-in lube that was supposed to mix with the first fill for the first few hours of use, so I put it back in. I then filled the unit up with some toyota 5w-30 engine oil I had around for a 20 min run. Then we dissasembled the engine.

Anyway, does anyone else think that this small bit of oil I first saw in the engine was break-in lube? Sounds reasonable to me.
 
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