Oil takes on water all the time, which adds to its degradation. When operating, the oil experiences very high temperatures, which adds another kind of wear to the oil. Ten years is a while, and I had mentioned half a decade, but most of what I have read suggests that oil holds up quite well over years. You specifically mention “antioxidents” (sic), and you may be correct… on that one issue.
Reclaimed Oil for push mower.
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Take the fill plug out and tip it over into a pan . That's what I do with my Toro Recycler .
Still change it.
Me either. Why not spend a few dollars every year for new oil?
Precisely. I have paid money for 1 lawn mower in the last 30 years.I'm also not sure why they posted a thread without a question... it's just a statement that the OP is using used motor oil.
"Hey guys I'm too cheap to buy new oil, and instead waste time swapping used oil between my mowers."
New Mexico, typical day has 5% to 25% humidity. Not worried about the oil taking on water.
I could also use it for break in oil. Its a mix of mobil1 v twin and Castrol GTX classic.
Its only got to last an hour or 2.
Its only got to last an hour or 2.
Found the perfect use for the "reclaimed oil", using it as flush oil for neglected push lawnmowers. Since it's only going to be ran for 30 minutes max and it's free so might as well. I burned up all my reclaimed oil on 3 neglected push mowers. So I don't even have any to run any long term.
That saves my GTX classic 20w-50 and clearance Walmart Brand 15w-40 oil for applications where the oil is going to run for more than an hour.
That saves my GTX classic 20w-50 and clearance Walmart Brand 15w-40 oil for applications where the oil is going to run for more than an hour.
I do the same thing. My X320 JD only sees 7 hours of use a year. For the last few years, that oil and the #3600 filter would be repurposed into a 2014 Ford turbo Escape. Now it will go into a Ram Diesel instead. I value my walk behind lawnmowers too much to put used oil in them, but Fords and Rams, no problem.
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Same goes for the hydrostatic transmission. It’s a pita sucking out the fluid in the non serviceable units and refilling every few years, but thousands of dollars cheaper than a repair bill or new lawn tractor.
The 3 neglected supposedly non-running mowers I adopted had black/grey oil in them. 2 of the 3 look like their oils never been changed.
I had all 3 running in less than an hour, I got to figure out which ones aren't salvageable so I can start stealing parts off them.
I topped up the jet black greyish oil with reclaimed oil, got them to fire up, ran them on several ounces of gas till it ran out and tipped them over to dump the old burned out oil. Refilled with reclaimed oil and I'll change them again more than likely.
One mower had translucent black oil that wasn't that bad, so I may leave the reclaimed oil in it.
Already sold one of them, the nicest of the 3.
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I worked at AutoZone when the ValuCraft brand oil came out. We were convinced it was just the stuff out of the recycling pits, filtered and bottled. Lol.Remember when Valvoline had the recycled oil in the green jugs?
That stuff looked rough straight out of the bottle. I hated having to actually let people buy it. Mobil 5000 was like $1.29 or so a quart at the time. VC was under a buck and people would buy it to change the oil in their nice new cars. Horrible. Lol
Yeah I remember it. The US military still appears to use it and the USPS used it at one time and probably still do in places that have a USPS motor pool.
It seems like I remember seeing an analysis on the "no change" engines along these lines:
The "average" homeowner will probably mow around 40 times a year(once a week for the spring/summer/fall) and run the engine for about an hour every time they use it. That's 40 hours a year, which honestly is probably high(I'd guess a lot of people who spend an hour pushing have a yard big enough to consider a rider).
At the end of 10 years, the mower will have accumulated 400 hours give-or-take. Between the fairly high quality air filter used on the no-change engines and keeping the crankcase topped off with a quality oil, the estimated engine life is ~500 hours.
After 10 years, on a typical consumer grade mower, there's a decent chance the deck will be rotten, other parts will be worn out, and/or the typical owner will just be ready for something new by that point.
Even when I was mowing our yard with a $200 Wal-Mart mower with a no-oil-change engine(my wife bought it right after she bought the house we're in, which was about a year before I met her) I still changed the oil every year, but truth be told after ~4 years the deck was already getting a bit thin in spots(and I was pretty picky about cleaning it when I was done with it for the day). There wasn't a lot of steel there to begin with(so glad everything I use now is alloy). I don't know if it would have even made 10 years.
As to the OP's premise-it seems nutty to me, but at the same time their mower is probably getting fresher oil than 99% of the homeowner push mowers out there. Granted when I actually had to worry about changing mower oil(mine never gets intentionally changed now
, or perhaps you could say I constantly change it) I almost always just used whatever partial bottle I had from a car oil change and called it a day. Most of the time it was Mobil1 5W-30, although at least once I had VR1 20W-50 in it. That made for fun starting that fall...
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