How often do you change oil in your lawn equipment?

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I own an MTD riding mower with a Briggs 14 HP mower that I run about an hour a week. I also own a Murray push mower with a 6 HP Briggs, that I run about 15 minutes a week. Once a year I change the oil, spark plugs and air filters on both. Does the oil in my equipment need to be changed more often, since it sits in my engines for a year, with no filtration?? -Joe
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[ September 12, 2002, 01:47 PM: Message edited by: joee12 ]
 
I have a twelve year old Honda push mower that I change the oil in at the end of each season. The machine only gets about twenty hours of use per season (mid May to mid October). Also clean and reoil the foam piece that covers the paper air filter element at the same time. I also run the mower out of fuel and give the whole thing a good cleaning top to bottom.

Now if I had a snowblower, I'd be servicing it a lot more often as I shovel snow more times in a season than I mow my lawn!
 
I currently use a mix of 50-50 Amsoil 15W40 AME and Mobil 1 15W50 for all my outside lawn and garden equipment that are air-cooled and non-filtered.

I have never seen the oil go dark during the whole season. I change it at the end of the season, pull the spark plug, and add 2 0z (or 60 cc) of motor oil into the combustion chamber with the piston at BTDC. I then replace the plug and pull or turn the crankshaft until I feel compression and then leave it for the winter.
 
I change the oil in my Craftman mower (14 years old) in the spring and again the end of July. Synthetic 10W30. Filter and plug, just about never, clean the filter twice a year but rarely replace it. Plug only if really rough running.
Drain all fuel in the fall for storage.

That's it

Leaf vacuum/chipper, high RPM about 3-4 times a year, mostly in the fall during the leaf season. Never replace plug or filter. Synthetic 10W30.
 
I'm a really bug about my car but I've been lax at times with my lawn & garden equipment. Sometimes, I've let oil (as long as it looked very clean) go longer than 1 year.

Currently, all my equipment which gets run gets a change once per year, has fresh oil in it. Most equipment (except the snowblower) gets their change late in the summer or the fall when it will only occasionally be used again that year. I just used Schaeffer's 15W40 blend with moly in my 1996 twin cylider Honda 18hp garden tractor.

I will leave the same oil in our generators for 2-3 years but dump it whenever we run the thing for more than a few hours. One of these buggers got run several hours each day for a few days in a row when a tornado ripped through this area years ago. Once power was restored, I changed the oil and put it away and have only test run it since then.

I have some of the same Honda equipment and clean the foam outer-element quite often. The soil is very sandy around here and the dust is quiote something. When re-oiling my foam pieces, I use chainsaw chain & bar lube because it'c cheap and has a great deal of tack additives.

--- Bror Jace
 
lawn mower,never changed oil, added oil only. - run 10/12yr. never any oil problem. wher'em/out/get new. genarator change oil every time i use it. [phoenix,az.-use mower all yr. long.-3 house's] NEVER ANY OIL PROBLEM.- spark -plug- small engins, clean only. gas-welder/ oil change,4/5 times sense new.i bought in 1964,still in vary good shape. ANY-one remember-bulk-oil .10$a qt ,BAD-SLUGE!!!
 
My TORO mower with 6.5 HP Briggs gets it's oil changed in late fall with 10W30 synthetic. My TORO snowblower gets 5W30 synthetic at the beginning of spring. I replace the air filter on the mower once a year. The snowblower does not have a air filter.
 
I am pretty meticulous with vehicles but with lawnmowers: Oil every year. Filter-who knows?? Spark plug 5-10 years. Never winterize. Mower is left under the carport.

I know-
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I used to change oil in the lawn "tractor" at ~20 hrs or less. It then used ~4 oz oil every 5 hrs or so. After using a Neutra 131 purge, & filling w/Schaeffer Dino(Moly-Bond?) earlier this summer, I now have ~35 hrs on this oil fill, oil still reads full, & doesn't look too dark yet.
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I'll probably change it after the next mow, may add a little 131 for a "re-clean"! I suspect that with good air filter service, I could stretch it to once a year.
 
i run my rider about 3 hrs a week in the summer, then i change oil and filter when i put it up for winter, i use 30wt synthetic. maybe be better to change in the spring, i dont know
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i have a 15 year old honda mower and its self perpelled...i never changed the oil...only the gas hehehe...still runs..though the air filter fell apart...so i took out the foam and now its cardboard..
 
william h, nope, I think you're better storing it over the winter with fresh oil in the crankcase as you are doing. There was a thread about this in the motorcycle section of this forum.

When you say synthetic 30 weight, do you mean 10W30?
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--- Bror Jace
 
I cut my lawn with a 36" SCAG with a 14 hp Kawasaki engine and a John Deere JX-75 with 6 hp Kawasaki engine. Each gets an oil (AMSOIL Series 2000 0w-30) and filter (FRAM TG4967) change in the fall before they go into "hibernation". A little Sta-Bil goes into the gas tank for the last couple of uses of the season.

Seems to work just fine so far.
 
get gas out of tank and carb for winter
just a heads up
that is 90% of our repair work(old fuel)
 
quote:

Originally posted by NThomas:
get gas out of tank and carb for winter
just a heads up
that is 90% of our repair work(old fuel)


NThomas, Is the use of gas stabilizer a bad way to store small engines?
 
I'm afraid that a fuel system with nothing in it will dry out and leak when fuel is added many months or years later.
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--- Bror Jace
 
i do not leave gas in any of my equipment if i am not going to be using it within 2 months.
like i said 90%+ of the repairs we do are because
gas was left in and it started to varnish.
todays gas will start to varnish within 30 days.

(from what i hear) gas also loses the octane level
after time which stabil does not help and the
engine will run hotter because of that.
we do see alot more engines that have been siezed
in the spring, and the gas smells bad. so im guessing this is true about the octane level

and you shouldnt have a problem with fuel line drying out because you drained fuel. my dad has a
trimmer that i used when i was in grade school,
which is still running today and he drained the
gas every year.

but i do run stabil through the season in all my
equipment.
 
I have to agree, that bad gas is a big problem for most small engine repairs but I have been using the 131 neutra and never drain the fuel. The esters in the 131 helps keep the fuel line from drying out since it is a lubricant,as it also keeps the fuel fresh, and actually helps the carb to stay clean. We also have many boats that winterize with the 131 the same way. I do this to all my equipment, 2 and 4stokes.
 
i havent changed my oil yet...lOl its been umm 10 years haha...im planning on putting some auto rx in there and some amsoil PI for the gas since it stutters from time to time...lol i run a INtake system on that lawn mower though hahaha a huge filter outside its jsut funnie
 
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