Black oil in my ope

[The motor guy]

Anyone do a short change with cheaper oil? Like just run it for a couple hours and change it out. We had a drought last year and ever since that I've noticed both my commercial mowers have really black oil even after changing it. Wonder if a whole season of breathing dust made the oil like this. These are both kawasaki fx engines and I just don't recall the oil being this dirty. The oil gets changed every 100hrs or so like the manual states

 

[Lubener]

Change the few quarts out if in doubt without all the drama.

 

[Exhaustgases]

So if your going 60 miles per hour and drive for 100 hours you go 6000 miles.
For an industrial small engine in dusty conditions, high temperature weather etc. I would say a 40 hour or less OCI would be better.

 

[Racer4]

For my 23 year old Simplicity rider I change the oil once a year filter every other year what’s 2 quarts about 50 hours.

 

[TheOilWizard]

If you're concerned about the oil, I would change it more frequently. Putting fresh oil in and dumping after a few hours seems wasteful and unlikely to accomplish much.

 

[Astro_Guy]

Anyone do a short change with cheaper oil? Like just run it for a couple hours and change it out. We had a drought last year and ever since that I've noticed both my commercial mowers have really black oil even after changing it. Wonder if a whole season of breathing dust made the oil like this. These are both kawasaki fx engines and I just don't recall the oil being this dirty. The oil gets changed every 100hrs or so like the manual states

Sustained dry and dusty conditions would definitely have an impact on OPE. What level of attention have you given to the air filters? It seems that they would be the first line of defense against dry and dusty conditions. Changing the oil more frequently would be the next step. Personally I would not run a short flush with cheaper oil; I would just shorten the OCI with a high quality oil.

 

[The motor guy]

Sustained dry and dusty conditions would definitely have an impact on OPE. What level of attention have you given to the air filters? It seems that they would be the first line of defense against dry and dusty conditions. Changing the oil more frequently would be the next step. Personally I would not run a short flush with cheaper oil; I would just shorten the OCI with a high quality oil.

It was just one season. That's definitely out of the norm.

 

[The motor guy]

It was just one season. That's definitely out of the norm.

I keep the air filters clean and also run 20w50 ARO amsoil