Oil for Honda HRX217 Mower with GCV-190 Engine

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I recently purchased a new mower and went with a Honda HRX217HYA. I'm really happy with the mower and want to take good care of it. The manual calls for 10W-30 or 5W-30.

I am looking at the following oils for this machine:

Mobil 1 10W-30
Shell Rotella T5 10W-30 Semi-Synthetic because I have this oil for other equipment
Shell Rotella T6 5W40 Full synthetic because I use a lot of this in my motorcycles and quads so I have that too.

I likely will be changing the oil more often than the manual requests just because it's so easy and I'm not concerned about putting $10 extra a year into maintaining a $700 piece of equipment.

What oils are other GCV-190 engine owners using?
 
I have two Honda OPE engines (a GCV160 and a GXV140) and use Shell Rotella T5 10W-30 in both of them. Great oil at a good price.

I change mine twice a year, which is probably too often, but I enjoy doing it. Here's a picture of my GCV160 with the cylinder head cover removed for valve clearance inspection.

IMAG0361.jpg
 
Thanks for the pic.

I have the same mower and that gets a lot of useage 3 times per week. I am currently running Mobil 1 0W-40 in mine and also change the oil twice each year.

Excellent machine!
 
Mine's a 2003 engine that originally came on a Craftsman mower I bought new. Deck is junked, but the engine lives on sitting on a very light weight Lawn-Boy deck. Engine is 10 years old and hasn't had an issue.

In fact, I just installed fuel filters on both of my Honda engines this weekend. I figured that I'd gone unfiltered for long enough on both with zero fuel issues...my luck just had to run out at some point. Now watch...I'll have a problem with one of them this year...
 
Thanks for the great feedback everybody and awesome photo Hokiefyd!

On these unfiltered lubrication systems I'm probably more likely to change the oil on shorter intervals just for particle removal rather than oil life issues.
 
Quote:

On these unfiltered lubrication systems I'm probably more likely to change the oil on shorter intervals just for particle removal rather than oil life issues.



That's my thinking. I do several changes within the first 10 hours, then i normally change it 2 or 3 times per season once I've got her all broken in. Its probably too frequent, but it only takes about 14oz to change, so its not like I'm wasting tons of oil.
 
I just bought the exact same mower! Love it so far. For my first change, I used Amsoil SS 10W-30.
 
I have a 160. I put a big fuel filter on her and she has been gtg for three years. Annual change with mobil 1 10w30. Changing to straight 30w next year
 
Originally Posted By: MrFixerUpper
Thanks for the great feedback everybody and awesome photo Hokiefyd!

On these unfiltered lubrication systems I'm probably more likely to change the oil on shorter intervals just for particle removal rather than oil life issues.



Methinks unless you have a bad air filter to begin with, I'd change it every 25hrs typical to rid of any suspended contaminants and dirt.

No use changing it more frequent than that, citing that there's no obvious means of introducing dirt/grit into your oil (other than the usual fuel dilution, combustion byproducts, came in via blowby, etc.

Q.
 
The material in the oil that I am more concerned with are wear metals, shavings and machining particles found at higher levels during early engine life during break in.

I understand the whole unnecessary oil change principle but when an oil change takes all of 10 minutes and costs $1.50 I really have a hard time not just dropping the oil on shorter intervals.
 
Originally Posted By: MrFixerUpper
The material in the oil that I am more concerned with are wear metals, shavings and machining particles found at higher levels during early engine life during break in.

I understand the whole unnecessary oil change principle but when an oil change takes all of 10 minutes and costs $1.50 I really have a hard time not just dropping the oil on shorter intervals.


1st oil change (to rid of metal shavings, etc.) typically happens around 5hrs after the start of the new engine; then 10hrs change, then 25hr change interval from there onwards.

That's how I've been treating/instructing all my clients for 10yrs now...

Q.
 
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