Westinghouse iGen 4500 Generator

Joined
May 22, 2005
Messages
48
Location
Maryland
Folks,

Haven't posted here in about ten years but I'm back and have a quesiton.

We recently purchased a Westinghouse iGen 4500 inverter generator for use as an emergency backup for our house. As many others do, we have a good amount of food packed away in the freezer so we don't need to visit the grocery store during the pandemic. We did the upgrade as we really don't want to risk losing the food and our old generator (Champion 3500/4000) has a lot of harmonic distortion and is pretty noisy. I have installed a load side 10 circuit transfer switch and we tested it out the other day and every thing works great. The Westinghouse iGen runs everything critical in the house without breaking a sweat and it looks like we will get about 16 hours of run time on 3.4 gallons with most appliance ands lights pulling a load at the same time.

Anyway, reading the manual (wife's suggestion) the manufacturer recommends a very strange oil range that is a "smidge" irritating to because we live in the mid atlantic and can easily experience all three "zones" in the course of a week, especially in the Spring and Fall.

5W30 for under 35F
10W30 for 35F-80F
15W40 for over 80F

We won't be using the generator very often and frankly I can't see myself changing the oil every 6 months just to accommodate the recommendations. I've been thinking about just going with a 10W-40 and calling it a day.

Recommendations?

thanks!
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Oildudeny
full synthetic of 5 or 10w30 will cover you


+2

A dino 10w40 will shear and is about the worst choice.

Keep your gasoline in good shape for reliability-- oil is secondary.
 
I would do a 10w 30 or 5w40. 15w40 might be too hard to start in winter. I like HDEO oils with a high TBN as generators sit a lot between running.

I have amsoil HDD 5w30 in mine. TBN 12.1
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by eljefino
Originally Posted by Oildudeny
full synthetic of 5 or 10w30 will cover you


+2

A dino 10w40 will shear and is about the worst choice.

Keep your gasoline in good shape for reliability-- oil is secondary.

+3-try to find E0 for it and keep Sta-Bil in it to keep it ready, otherwise E10 will have to be changed every few months as it will pull moisture from the air & gum up your carburetor when you need it most. T5 10W30 seems to be good in this application, it has almost as low a pour point as T6 5W40 for a much lower price, I've used it exclusively in HF Predator engines (which is the Chonda engine all HF generators use) with good results.
 
Rotella T4 10W-30 year round.


[Linked Image]
 
As long it's 5W or 10W something. Don't want the machine trying to pump, or throw cold Karo syrup (straight weight) around on initial startup when it's cool outside.
 
Just changed the oil in my Troybilt generator today. I have always used 5W-30 but this time I used 0W-30 since I had some extra lying around. And 0W-40 is also a good choice especially if most of your power problems occur in summer as do mine. I like to use a 5or 0W grade for reliable winter starts. I am getting older and I need easy starting since it does not have a battery start system. And also I highly recommend non ethanol gasoline to keep things from gumming up. It's all that I use in the genny.
 
Back
Top