Can't find 30W oil anywhere in my area, or on line.

[TobyU]

Help me understand why the gravely needs non detergent oil.

It doesn't. And since most mowers like that don't have any type of oil pump passage with pressure lubrication etc even if there was a ton of sludge sitting in the bottom, it wouldn't matter but by the design, when you did all changes most of that would come out anyways because there's a drain plug at or very near the bottom.
My previous post addressed non detergent oil in very old cars that it had it for decades which often have over half an inch of built up sludge on the bottom and that's not something you can get out unless you remove the pan or part of the pan.
This is why some people continue to use not a church in those as detergent oil is likely to bring that into suspension and cause more problems than good.

 

[TobyU]

I’ve been using Shell Rotella 15W40 T4 oil in all my non lawn equipment for over 25 years and have never had any premature wear issues. I buy it by the 5 gal pail to get it cheaper than individual quarts.

And many others can say the same for using 10w30, or 10w40, or lots of other things they've been slapping in lawnmower engines for decades and their experience will be just as good as yours, or mine BECAUSE in reality, with all opinions and personal preferences aside, it makes very little difference what kind, brand, type, weight of oil you have in a little low performance turd lawn mower engine and the only thing that really matters is that you have ENOUGH oil in them.
Sure, anyone can make up some specific scenario to support their argument but for the highest percentiles and I mean like 99 plus percent of the time this is all that really matters.

Does that mean I pour anything into my mowers? Not at all!
Hi Ron straight 30 and whatever brand is fine with me..
I used to run the stuff from Meijer but then it went up. Then rural King had the best price and they've increased their price a lot also.
2 months ago they had Pennzoil on sale cheaper than the house brand so I bought that..
Last time I bought all they had rotella 30 weight on sale so I bought several gallons of that.

 

[hotajax]

Super Tech is as good as any oil marketed.

I use SuperTech full syn in my truck 330,000 miles. Also in my standby generator which has been in service for 9 years now. Guess what? They're both running fine, and I don't go to confession on Saturday. Just change it when you're supposed to. Everything else I have runs on 2 cycle fuel

 

[hotajax]

And many others can say the same for using 10w30, or 10w40, or lots of other things they've been slapping in lawnmower engines for decades and their experience will be just as good as yours, or mine BECAUSE in reality, with all opinions and personal preferences aside, it makes very little difference what kind, brand, type, weight of oil you have in a little low performance turd lawn mower engine and the only thing that really matters is that you have ENOUGH oil in them.
Sure, anyone can make up some specific scenario to support their argument but for the highest percentiles and I mean like 99 plus percent of the time this is all that really matters.

Does that mean I pour anything into my mowers? Not at all!
Hi Ron straight 30 and whatever brand is fine with me..
I used to run the stuff from Meijer but then it went up. Then rural King had the best price and they've increased their price a lot also.
2 months ago they had Pennzoil on sale cheaper than the house brand so I bought that..
Last time I bought all they had rotella 30 weight on sale so I bought several gallons of that.

"Low performance turd lawnmower engine". Good one. You should be on with Joe Rogan.

 

[TobyU]

"Low performance turd lawnmower engine". Good one. You should be on with Joe Rogan.

I'm not sure who he is but I think he's involved with sports or something but I've been calling them low performance little turds... for a long time.

Let me also say that everything I say or post in one of these forums unless it's obvious it's simply my opinion or my preference which I will usually clearly state that.. but everything else, if I say it you can take it to the bank as being absolutely 100% fact!
I don't know why I have to bother to tell people this but it seems humans today especially on social media and online have the default stance I'm not trusting anything anyone says.
I don't get that but I guess we should be clear or more clear when we tell people things like maybe try this or something to let them know we're not telling them that this is specifically going to work that's why we said maybe.

But back to turdmobiles.
A current, latest and greatest high-tech Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engine of let's say the 24 horsepower variety is about 597 cc's. Let's forget for a moment that you could also find a 597cc or approximate engine that had anywhere from 20 to probably 26 horsepower but let's just sweep them into the carpet for now as we can let people argue and blame that on different carburetors later.

So this 2023 model engine is almost 600 cc's it has maybe 24 horsepower on a good day, and some test lab at low altitude and very dense thick moist air but also maybe with a small leaf trimmer with a trickle of gasoline being blown into its air filter housing.

But I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's got 24 horsepower.
A 1987 let's say Kawasaki 600 ninja sport bike also had a 600cc engine, about 598 or so but in some situations they were only barely x48 and they rounded up and still called them to the next hundred.
But anyways, these engines had a minimum of around 85 horsepower!

Shocking and exhilarating!
Sure, they had four cylinders but that's not the point - they were still a 600cc engine but they WERE NOT low performance turds.
They were high performance.... Some of the highest performance.

Now what really surprises me cuz I thought these motorcycle engines had high compression ratios but apparently they're just about as bad as the lawn mowers had like 7:1. This is surprising and slightly disappointing.
Back then, even with the cheapest pump gas eight and a half or at least eight and three quarter if not 9 or 9 and 1/4 to 1 would have been just fine but on a high performance motorcycle why not tell people they have to run premium fuel in there with a minimum octane of 89 or 91?.
But llama wrenches have very little compression ratio also. I often joke that it's about 7:1 but it may be worse than that.
If you've ever slowly watched the intake valve open and the Piston go down two bottom dead center and sit there waiting for it to close so it can actually compress the air that's in the cylinder...and you sit there waiting, and waiting, and waiting as the Piston comes back up as you rotate the flywheel etc and then only when the Piston gets to like 3/4 of the way up or something on its last little legs the valve actually closes!
It's depressing!
I know there's that pesky little thing that if the valves operated like I want them to you wouldn't be able to pull the rope as it would yank it out of your hand and break your fingers or wrist but that's not the point!!
Low performance little turds!!!

Got to go. I'm on a roll today pissing people off.

 

[TobyU]

I use SuperTech full syn in my truck 330,000 miles. Also in my standby generator which has been in service for 9 years now. Guess what? They're both running fine, and I don't go to confession on Saturday. Just change it when you're supposed to. Everything else I have runs on 2 cycle fuel

And Steve down the road used 10w40 Valvoline in his with the same results. Phil around the corner use that no name stuff that Speedway gas station sells and the black bottles with the big colored label and his didn't blow up either.

I am seriously going to take one of these little lawn mower engines and poor Wesson oil in it and videotape it and run it etc and prove that you won't notice any difference and you won't have any reduced lifespan as long as the dam engine is lubricated.
With these new Briggs and strattons and their plastic camshafts, like it's really going to matter..
I will say though I pulled one apart the other day and it did have a slightly improved and redesigned camshaft so you know they might actually be trying a little bit.
They have a very bad track record at not putting any effort into fixing problems but we'll see.

 

[lbrac]

I kind of like the 2nd reply here:

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/air-cooled-engines-need-the-very-best-oil.360167/

It makes sense to me. How many old pieces of equipment are still around and running, that were always fed 'a good grade of 30W motor oil', a phrase I remember from somewhere? Which pieces of equipment are the ones that fail? Just by observation, with no statistical basis, hearsay if you will, most that die are the ones that were NOT fed oil at all, or were fed oil that was old after the first year of use. I.e., the oil was either lacking or not changed.
Very few failures are due to the design or manufacturing process, most being due to abuse by an ignorant(or lazy) owner. Of course there are exceptions.

If it calls for 30W, dump in something that is decent, and change it at reasonable intervals.

When these engines, even new ones, were designed, the extra cushion of temperature stability provided by synthetic lubricants was not even considered as the cost per quart was multiple times that of regular oil, and regular oil met the needs with a good cushion. Using synthetic is a personal choice, and is up to the individual. I *think* most failures are due to owner/operator considerations(or lack of), not the grade/brand/type of oil.
tom

I generally keep my equipment, so I maintain it reasonably well myself. I have never had an oil related failure in any of my engines, but I use the recommended grade of oils and filters, if so equipped. In a 12-month automotive maintenance course I took after high school in 1968-69, we had an Autolite rep come in for a couple of days to basically tell stories of his experiences. He had been on the Chevy team at Daytona around 1956-57 when they ran a first year fuel-injected Corvette engine. They had no real experience with fuel injection and had little time to test before the race. The car ran much faster than they expected, and it burned up the engine due to it being too lean. As an inscrutable Japanese motorcycle engineer once said, "sometimes more is learned when nothing is gained", which applied here. Later, when he was with Autolite, he was making a sales call at a Ford dealer one day when a customer came to get parts. They talked, and the customer said all he used was Autolite filters and oil because they were the best. He was bad-mouthing Wix filters and a brand of oil, I can't remember which one. The rep didn't have the heart to tell the customer that that year Autolite had contracted with Wix for their filters and whatever the brand of oil was that he hated. The customer left with the Autolite branded filters and oil he came to get. Marketing is the name of the game for most products. Claims might have some truth to them, but that doesn't mean that that claim applies to your needs. If a lube is failing in a particular application, then another product might perform better. But if a product is performing well, then another, more expensive product might not make any difference in that application. The goal is to use products that provide all you need without paying a premium for something you don't. If a supposed premium product is readily available and only a little more expensive, then maybe it is worth it for the peace of mind. But if it requires a major search to find, and then it is considerably more expensive, then maybe it isn't. Don't be the Autolite customer who would go out of his way to pay a premium not to use the same product by a different name; unless of course you want to. "Often it is harder for a mechanic to fix the owner than the equipment."

 

[lbrac]

I like to go green so I use Wesson canola oil.

I prefer peanut oil, it tolerates higher temps better than canola oil. Besides, I don't even know what a canola looks like, or where it lives.

 

[lbrac]

I like to go green so I use Wesson canola oil.

I prefer peanut oil, it tolerates higher temps better than canola oil. Besides, I don't even know what a canola looks like or where it lives.

I guess I will be the guy that pees in the pool.
Can anyone post a pic of an engine that failed because of the quality of an oil? Not run low on oil or overheated or oil not changed in a timely manner. An engine that had bearing or cylinder damage because the oil failed.
Back in the 60's and 70's they sold rerefined oil which was made from used motor oil. Stuff smelled burned and looked nasty but cost half what new oil did. Ran that trash in mowers for years in jr high and high school in a few mowers. Never had a problem with wear and yes I tore some of the engines down. Is there a "bad" oil out there?

Not many people around these days that remember re-refined oil, I suspect. I had a friend in high school who had a Fairlane w/ a V-8 that burned so much oil, he would buy it by the case (Palm brand, non-detergent, less than $0.25/qt.) and carry it in his trunk. He would have to add at least a quart between gas fill ups, and another when he filled up. It was great for mosquito control. When he finally pulled the engine down to rebuild it, it was because the compression was so low it would only start when cold. It was said there was enough sludge in it to grow corn, although I doubt corn would grow very well in engine sludge.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I prefer peanut oil, it tolerates higher temps better than canola oil. Besides, I don't even know what a canola looks like, or where it lives.

Canolas live in jungles. you normally find them in the same areas as you find naugas.