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

[nbpt100]

And Briggs & Stratton tells you exactly this. For decades they have said that the recommended oil for their engines is an SAE 30 or HD 30. They say that a 10w30 may be used as a substitute but increased oil consumption may occur.
I always tell people it's not may occur but will occur.
However, as you stated, all the failures come from not having enough oil. You could probably put Wesson oil in the damn thing and it would still last as long as it's going to last as long as you kept enough oil in it.
People actually waste a lot of oil on lawn mowers simply because it makes them feel better.

The reality is that hardly anyone is ever going to notice a reduction of lifespan in their lawn mower due to lack of oil changes..
All the reduction in lifespan and the fairly instantaneous destruction is from not having enough oil in them and running them low on oil for long periods of time.

These are simply the facts! People don't want to acknowledge them because it makes them feel so much better to get that black oil out of their lawn mower.
Briggs & Stratton a few years ago just took the approach of if you can't beat them join them.
That's what this never needs oil changes just check and top off is all about.
That's what the majority of customers were doing anyways.

I'm in the lawn mower maintenance and repair business but I still think people waste a lot of money on having them over serviced every year and I can prove it by the math.

Soon, that's all going to change though because eventually the what I call junk wimpy battery mowers are going to outnumber the gasoline ones and eventually they will take over and dominate.
After this happens there will be no maintenance other than sharpening or replacing a blade.
But what there will be is very expensive battery replacements on a regular basis and some almost predictable pattern of how many batteries you can replace until you end up replacing the mower with a new one.

However I also predict after that honeymoon period is over and lots of people have buyers remorse or after 9 months or a year or so when their battery capacity is lower than it was for new which was already poor enough...they will want their old mowers back and we'll have to see if the industry will provide this for them or if this will create a huge demand for good used mowers.

I feel they will come out with some clever marketing with a slight redesign on the engine and call it something like generation 2 or whatever on the engines to get people, and the agencies etc over the fact that they're internal combustion engines somehow claiming their cleaner or whatever else which I don't think most of us care about it all anyways but they'll be giving us a nice powerful longer lasting gasoline engine.

Then, people will be able to go back to mowing their whole lawns as one event and blasting through tall overgrown grass with or without a discharge shoot on the side etc and use them as brush hogs as they done since their inception.

I agree with almost all of what you say. except the homeowner mower market is going electric and not turning back. A second generation ICE may carry the industrial/commercial uses but joe homeowner is only gong to have electric options for new stuff in less than 10 years. Home Depot has already said they will stop selling ICE in the future. I forget the date but they gave one in a memo. Now they can change their mind. But we shall see. Every one I know who has a battery powered mower has been satisfied with it. They all of smaller lawns of course. I even know of one guy with a zero turn battery powered who likes it over his gas. He says the battery one does not tear his grass when he turns.
But this is an oil thread and I agree with all you said about oil.

 

[brucebrp]

Both detergent and non-detergent SAE30 is available at NAPA store.

 

[TobyU]

I agree but they should still sell the ND oil. There are enough applications. As you say compressors. Vac pumps which is like a compressor too. I know old engine manuals will call for ND but we have learned the detergent can be better. Electric motor oil is usually SAE 20. You could use 30 on an older motor and get positive results. Your points are well taken but they should still sell it. BTW they do sell a super tech lawn mower oil in a 10w-30 grade. I assume it has more zinc for air cooled applications but I do not think they say that on the label.


Again BITOG very likely covers all of this.

I just can't agree that Walmart should still sell it. It should be still sold on the market but not by walmart..
They have compressor oil over in the Campbell hausfeld bottles and their compressor section and no one should be going to Walmart to buy oil for a vacuum pump.
If you go to like tractor supply or rural King who actually sells vacuum pumps they also have the oil right there with it.
As I said the only thing useful would be that fan motor but still 32 thick for that as you mentioned 20 weight is mostly preferred.
So even if they're going to sell it, it's obvious they don't know how it's intended to be used due to their product placement and they should hide it somewhere like put it over by differential gear lubes etc and not next to their lawnmower oils because that is too big of a risk of someone grabbing that bottle because it says 30 on it and also in ND is very close to HD if you're not paying attention or don't know what you're talking about.
If someone just reads in the manual that SAE or HD 30 is recommended and then they get to the store and they see this ND 30 they might just remember it was 30 only and it didn't have a 10w in it so they will buy that and pour it in their Mower and that's not good for the engine.

So I feel it's a risk they shouldn't take and shouldn't keep that stuff anywhere near the lawn mower oil or even have it at all at Walmart.

I've had several of those old cars that were designed and ran on non detergent oil for decades.
I'm sure everyone has their opinion but mine has always been that it's very risky to switch over to detergent oil unless you know what the inside of the engine looks like or you've had it apart recently.

If the engine is clean then it's far better to go with a detergent oil like a se30 or 10W30 etc but so many of these engines after the decades literally have a pond of muck at the bottom of the oil pan.
In fact, one of these engines was a 337 V8 Lincoln and they're all pan is made in a way that the very bottom inch and a half or so on both from the old pan and has its own gasket there.
This is the bottom more square part of the oil pan closer to the rear.
If you take one of those off on an engine that's never been switched over, and I'm talking only one with 40 or 50,000 miles, you would be amazed what's in there.
The risk of putting detergent oil in there and pulling everything into suspension which is what some of those additives do could be very risky..
On those, I take the pans off and clean everything out mainly first and then usually flush them out and then convert them over to a detergent oil and then change it two or three times in a row within fairly short amount of miles.
This prevents that pond of muck from building back up.

We must also remember though that not all new oil is better just because new and technology.
More flat tappet camshafts were destroyed in a short period of time when SM and SN oil took over then any other amount of camshafts in history!

It's a real shame this happened but it did.
They pulled the zinc out way early and at that period of time they hadn't compensated for the small percent of flat tappets still out there with other additives and stuff.
Now, some of these newer oils even though they don't have high zinc content are quite protective of flat tappet cams.
Then of course you have people who are buying additives or special oil and racing oil because the zinc content is higher but either way you do it, they just have a desired result they're trying to achieve.

I just roll my eyes though when people make blanket statements about all the oil being better today than it was back then and stuff like that.
That all depends because better - for what purpose??

As was most everything in life, it depends.

 

[TobyU]

I agree with almost all of what you say. except the homeowner mower market is going electric and not turning back. A second generation ICE may carry the industrial/commercial uses but joe homeowner is only gong to have electric options for new stuff in less than 10 years. Home Depot has already said they will stop selling ICE in the future. I forget the date but they gave one in a memo. Now they can change their mind. But we shall see. Every one I know who has a battery powered mower has been satisfied with it. They all of smaller lawns of course. I even know of one guy with a zero turn battery powered who likes it over his gas. He says the battery one does not tear his grass when he turns.
But this is an oil thread and I agree with all you said about oil.

Well, I was simply saying a possibility that I see occurring. I'm not making bets either way.
Like I said, it is going to get to the point where the battery powered mowers completely dominate and that's all you can buy new.
So, people will take the leap of faith and they will buy one and some will have instant buyer's remorse but others will get by okay some after slightly changing their mowing habits or buying an extra battery so they can swap them mid-mo but they'll make do.
You do get a little bit of extra convenience with them but for most the extra aggravation is worse than the extra convenience but it won't matter when that's the only new more you can buy so they will suck it up and deal with it.
However, give it 9 months to year and a half and they're already wimpy battery capacity is down to about 60 to 80% of what it was and soon thereafter it won't even finish the yard with their two batteries so they'll be looking for better alternatives instead of just going out buying a new $600 mower again and another $200 battery.

So as I said, what I -could- see happening is a new demand coming for the old gasoline power mowers people had in the first place.

The prices for new ones and the prices for used ones has already gone up for the past three seasons..

I can fully see at some point here in the next few years or so used good condition gasoline-powered mowers selling on marketplace or garage sales etc for more money than these mower sold for new!
They're already going for 2 to 300 and a lot of those mowers like Toro personal Pace sold brand new for 349 for a good number of years.

You could buy a Troy-Bilt or craftsman front wheel drive mower for 249 to 269 for a heck of a long time.

People who have had it with battery powered mowers and the sacrifices that go with them will be out there spending 300 bucks to get them a good powerful all day long mowing gasoline mower and I'm going to have as many of them to sell as possible when this happens!!
I've been hoarding these things for a long time. I have literally brand new mowers that have never cut grass that I purchased in 2005.
Back then, I wasn't even trying to be opportunistic. It was simply a decent deal on sale and I just have a weird hang up about lawn mowers.
I absolutely hate to use them because that's work, and I hate to get them dirty and stuff like that so I just like to collect them.
Kind of the same way with cars. Except they're more work to keep clean even if you don't drive them.

I have to go wipe off one of my car show cars tomorrow because I've had it out I think 3 weeks now without actually spray detailing it wiping it down and while people still stop and take pictures of it, it's really starting to look terrible.

 

[TobyU]

My 2 cents is that I have been a mechanic for over 30 years and I use Synthetic 5W-30 with the proper API in my trucks and lawn equipment for as long as I can remember and NEVER had a engine issue. As long as you change it at the proper interval. I tend to over maintenance every thing I own because oil is cheaper than engine issues. BTW 30W is only for summer use and I plow in the winter so 5W-30 is a better choice for cold starts.

Yes, and tons of other people will have their two cents also with their personal experience which will be about the same as yours... They use a certain oil and half forever and they haven't had any problems. Lol
The fact is, hardly anyone ever has any or related failures or problems from these small air cooled engines as it's always something else.

You mentioned changing it at proper intervals, but that's pretty irrelevant too.
The most important thing is keeping enough oil in the engine!
This can be compounded when people use synthetic oil because it tends to leak out and disappear a little quicker but as long as they keep it on the full mark it doesn't make much difference what type of oil they put in there short of being 30° below zero and them having straight 30 or straight 40 in there..
The manufacturers never spec for that and even on snow blowers they tell you to use 5W30 because they assume a snow blower is going to be started and ran somewhere under 40° F and typically under 32.

Autos are just so far different from lawn mower engines that most of our experiencing comparisons just can't be related.
It is so much more important in an automobile too change your oil frequently and not let that dirty nasty crap get in there and grind things away and cause all kinds of other damage like sludge and plugging passages and creating lack of lubrication etc.
I have literally had one engine, Ford modular V10 6.8 blow up on me do to an oil related failure.
It wasn't technically my fault but I bought the vehicle from the original owner at 86k and it was 3 quarts low when I bought it so barely on the tip of the stick.
This was also a fleet vehicle that once it was started it typically idled forever and would go 6 8 or 10 hours before shutting off with most of that being idle.
I don't think the man ever changed the engine oil.
Maybe, but he didn't take care of it.
I changed the oil with typically a semi-synthetic oil but I do know one time I ran t6 rotella in it and at 1:335 even with a fresh oil change of Pennzoil Platinum 5W30 it lost oil pressure and welded the cams to the heads.

When I took that thing apart I was literally amazed by what I found.
The inside of the valve covers looked like peanut brittle that I had to scrape off with a screwdriver and a putty knife!!
The pickup tube was so clogged to ended up replacing it.

I keep saying guessing myself wondering that if I would have used like a double dose of engine flush two different times on that if maybe I could have prevented this but probably not.

Funny thing is, the engine ran absolutely flawlessly until the oil light came on and well even after that for about 30 seconds. Lol

I will also say that this failure was more related to running it excessively low all the time because it did have a slight oil pan leak that would drip right onto the exhaust pipe so it didn't leave spots on the ground and it coked everything up in there.
It wasn't because he ran the wrong weight of oil or whatever else but it certainly compounded the fact that he probably didn't change it every 3,000 miles.
If you would have, it probably wouldn't have been so low to Coke up all the oil as they would have been filling it up every 3,000 miles but it was a very good price for the vehicle and it was what it was.
I'm not upset about it at all because the story about the engine replacement and the almost no money I had in doing it and the fact that it was actually cheaper for me to switch the engine then it would have been if I would have done two oil changes a year for the time I own the vehicle..... Makes me feel a little better but I wish the engine wouldn't have blown in the first place.

 

[Back44L&G]

And Briggs & Stratton tells you exactly this. For decades they have said that the recommended oil for their engines is an SAE 30 or HD 30. They say that a 10w30 may be used as a substitute but increased oil consumption may occur.
I always tell people it's not may occur but will occur.
However, as you stated, all the failures come from not having enough oil. You could probably put Wesson oil in the damn thing and it would still last as long as it's going to last as long as you kept enough oil in it.
People actually waste a lot of oil on lawn mowers simply because it makes them feel better.

The reality is that hardly anyone is ever going to notice a reduction of lifespan in their lawn mower due to lack of oil changes..
All the reduction in lifespan and the fairly instantaneous destruction is from not having enough oil in them and running them low on oil for long periods of time.

These are simply the facts! People don't want to acknowledge them because it makes them feel so much better to get that black oil out of their lawn mower.
Briggs & Stratton a few years ago just took the approach of if you can't beat them join them.
That's what this never needs oil changes just check and top off is all about.
That's what the majority of customers were doing anyways.

I'm in the lawn mower maintenance and repair business but I still think people waste a lot of money on having them over serviced every year and I can prove it by the math.

Soon, that's all going to change though because eventually the what I call junk wimpy battery mowers are going to outnumber the gasoline ones and eventually they will take over and dominate.
After this happens there will be no maintenance other than sharpening or replacing a blade.
But what there will be is very expensive battery replacements on a regular basis and some almost predictable pattern of how many batteries you can replace until you end up replacing the mower with a new one.

However I also predict after that honeymoon period is over and lots of people have buyers remorse or after 9 months or a year or so when their battery capacity is lower than it was for new which was already poor enough...they will want their old mowers back and we'll have to see if the industry will provide this for them or if this will create a huge demand for good used mowers.

I feel they will come out with some clever marketing with a slight redesign on the engine and call it something like generation 2 or whatever on the engines to get people, and the agencies etc over the fact that they're internal combustion engines somehow claiming their cleaner or whatever else which I don't think most of us care about it all anyways but they'll be giving us a nice powerful longer lasting gasoline engine.

Then, people will be able to go back to mowing their whole lawns as one event and blasting through tall overgrown grass with or without a discharge shoot on the side etc and use them as brush hogs as they done since their inception.

Referenced underlined quote above in blue, note in section (e), that "You" is the manufacturer.
The answer is under (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-U/part-1054), 40CFR Part § 1054.125 What maintenance instructions must I give to buyers?
Section (e):
(e) Maintenance that is not emission-related. For maintenance unrelated to emission controls, you may schedule any amount of inspection or maintenance. You may also take these inspection or maintenance steps during service accumulation on your emission-data engines, as long as they are reasonable and technologically necessary. This might include adding engine oil, changing fuel or oil filters, servicing engine-cooling systems, and adjusting idle speed, governor, engine bolt torque, valve lash, or injector lash. You may not perform this nonemission-related maintenance on emission-data engines more often than the least frequent intervals that you recommend to the ultimate purchaser.

What Briggs and Stratton did was based on Section (e) above concerning their advertised statements of just topping off oil and no oil changes. Most of us on this forum realize that those instructions are a failure if you plan on keeping your equipment running for years to come. If you watch any of the lawnmower repair channels on YT, you will see that many people don't take care of their lawn equipment- as long as it starts up and cuts, they think it's all good. They burn pump gas without a stabilizer and then complain that the mower won't start in the spring. Those days unfortunately are going away as the high-dollar battery mowers are taking over.

 

[TobyU]

Also, while we're talking about oils and 30 weight... Can anyone provide any proof or even reasonable recommendations that a 30 weight diesel oil like rotella is any better or worse than a heavy duty or SE 30 car oil?.
I think a lot of people have a lot of preferences and rationales but if anything I would think the diesel oil would tend to be a little better for an air-cooled lawn mower.
Regardless, I have used both and will use whichever I can get cheaper.
I sleep exactly the same at night regardless of which one I put into these small lawn mower engines.

 

[GrumpyCat]

I have never ever ever seen a "30W" oil.

None of the links provided go to a "30W" oil, no matter Amazon's ignorant description writers often say so. Look at the product pictures "SAE 30" no W. Sometimes "30WT".

There is "30 weight" oil, which is significantly different from a winter rated 30W oil.

Nothing wrong with Walmart Super Tech oils. There are very few base oil refiners in the world, everyone else (including Castrol) is a blender who buys base oil from the refiners, mixes additives, bottles and sells under their own brands. Super Tech consistently gets very good reviews from those who actually test oils at Bob Is The Oil Guy.

Over the years when asked their favorite oil the guys at Blackstone Labs https://www.blackstone-labs.com/ have always replied tongue-in-cheek, "SAE 30".

 

[GrumpyCat]

Also, while we're talking about oils and 30 weight... Can anyone provide any proof or even reasonable recommendations that a 30 weight diesel oil like rotella is any better or worse than a heavy duty or SE 30 car oil?.

Once Upon A Time so-called "diesel oils" were HDFOs, Heavy Duty Fleet Oils. To simplify things for fleet managers one oil suitable for diesel, gasoline, and many transmissions/gearboxes was formulated. Fleet managers watch costs closely, including time between overhauls. HDFO vendors had to deliver a superior product, couldn't sell oil with only a picture of a big-busted model. Not that they didn't have some racy promotional posters for the fleet customers...

So we have Delvac, Delo, and Rotella, competing head to head. Product improved.

Then recently emission regulations for both diesel and gasoline have gotten to the point an oil which meets one is harmful for the emission system of the other. Lawnmowers don't worry much about catalytic converters, oxygen sensors, or diesel particulate filters, yet. So today's "diesel oils" are diesel only. But not just for emissions. Special additives are used to neutralize the byproducts of gasoline combustion (and ethanol), and special additives to neutralize the byproducts of diesel combustion. Lacking those, acid forms. The diesel-only oils on the shelf may still have gasoline byproduct neutralizers but here is no guarantee, and no guarantee for how long it will continue.

Use a gasoline rated oil in gasoline engines. If you can find dual gasoline/diesel rated "diesel oil" then by all means that is fine to use. Be ware it will have very strong detergent action to carry the soot produced by a diesel. It may scour your engine of soot you didn't know was in there. It may turn black very quickly, but that is OK, black oil means it is working, does not mean it has gone bad.

 

[UTBMXCruiser]

Walmart SuperTech 30W non detergent is perfectly fine in a Briggs motor. I've used it for years in my older motors. When you drill down there is really nothing special going on inside a lawn mower engine. The newer Briggs mowers call for full synthetic 15W50. If you wanna get crazy over oil run that cause of it's sump temp heat break down resistance. Non detergent or not.