200cc pressure washer sae 30 oil or something better?

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seen a petrol powered pressure washer with a 4 stroke 200cc engine rated at 6.5hp. it states to use sae 30 oil.
from what iv been reading up on here the 30 rating is when the oil is hot, so why not use a fully synthetic car engine oil that is multigrade like 5w30 or 0w30? since when up to temperature it would be a 30 grade like sae30 but when cold / startup it would flow a lot better than the straight sae30 grade?

or are these types of engines very particular on using the conventional sae30 thats specced in the manual?
 
I don't know how important the non-detergent (ND) aspect of the oil is, but that may be a consideration for staying with 30W oil.
 
I assume we are talking for the engine.

SAE 30 would be fine as would a 5W30 or 10W30. I doubt you will be doing much pressure washing in cold weather so an oil's cold weather properties are not very important.
 
One of those Chinese Honda GX200 clone engines? 196cc? Great engines.

I doubt you are going to pressure wash under 65 degrees F (18 degrees C) ?? I tried pressure washing at that temp and my hands froze and was very cold. As long as you are pressure washing above 5 degrees C, SAE 30 will be fine. Yes it is harder to pull start at that temp.

10W30 car oil is thinner at temp than SAE 30 usually, and breaks down and thins to a 20 weight pretty rapidly.

That being said, synthetic 10W30 car oil, diesel/fleet 10W30, and diesel/fleet 15W40, all will work perfect in this engine.

Briggs and Stratton actually recommends synthetic 15W50 for pressure washing applications, which I have used with great success as well in many engines.

Your engine will be fine with practically any 30 to 50 weight oil in the crankcase. The fact that you are on this website, means you will probably check and change your oil at normal intervals, so as long as their is oil on the dipstick it really doesn't matter.
 
I generally use SAE 30 in my pressure washer . It gets used mostly in warm weather . I use 5w30 in my snow blower and have used it in the pressure washer without any issues The pump oil is a separate oil and is a non detergent oil .
 
How fast would fully synthetic 5w30 oil break down in this application?
I would be using the pressure washer twice a year and it would be used for around 12 hours of run time per use so thats 24 hours of running time per year. Probably less if its faster at cleaning than my electric one that burnt out.
Id Change the oil every year since 5w30 is very cheap and i have it already for the cars.

Just dont want to have it die on me like my nilfisk electric one did. Only had it just over 2 years and 24 hours of use a year so it ran less than 50 hours and it was dead.

By the way the 12 hours per use is not constant. Its like 4 hours a day. So total of 6 days of pressure washing the block paving a year to get 6 days x 4 hours = 24 hours a year.
 
The reason air cooled engines have always spec'd SAE 30 oil is that cheaper multigrade oils will degrade when exposed to the hotter oil temps that air cooled engines experience. In the last decade or two, oils have improved dramatically, so you started to see engine manufacturers include 10w-30, 5w-30, etc. as a recommended viscosity for various temperatures.

If you use a high quality oil, you can certainly use your choice of multigrade-- 5w-30, 10w-40, etc. If you run primarily in warm weather, I'd stick with what works. SAE30 or a 15w-40 would be my choice.
 
can these small engines take a fully synthetic 5w40 or will it be too thick?
 
Are you sure this spec is for the engine and not the pump? Typically it's the pump that requires a ND 30 wt oil.
 
I use Pennzoil 30 weight oil in my pressure washer engine. It's a Briggs & Stratton XR950. It's held up well for several years with this oil. In fact, in addition to me using it, I encourage my friends to borrow it too (I'd rather it run than sit). So it gets a fair amount of use.

Actually just changed the oil in it today. Ran a magnet in the sump before refilling and found very little metal. Everything seems to be wearing very well and I plan to keep running 30 weight.
 
Originally Posted by nobb
Are you sure this spec is for the engine and not the pump? Typically it's the pump that requires a ND 30 wt oil.


No where did the OP say that engine manual called for a non-detergent SAE30 oil.
 
Originally Posted by slybunda
can these small engines take a fully synthetic 5w40 or will it be too thick?


Like I said in my previous post, Briggs and Stratton, one of the worlds largest small engine manufacturers, recommends 15W50 for engines that are used for pressure washing.

I have 20W50 oil in my GX200 clone pressure washer engine right now.

You wont notice any difference at all from a SAE30 to a 20W50. The engine runs the same, sounds the same, starts the same.

So YES, I can unequivocally say that your engine will run fine on 5W40 synthetic.
 
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