10w30 in crafstman lawnmower

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well I was wondering if it's bad to put 10w30 GTX into the lawnmower, cause I drained and filled it up with GTX and cut my grass with it and never had any problems other then I kept over filling it haha.
 
might be ok, long term, may reduce life. straight 30 or syn 10w30 is generally the recommendation.

JMH
 
10w30 caused my mower to smoke. My Briggs likes 15w40 and straight 30w better. Less smokage and a bit quieter. I seriously doubt the 10w30 will hurt it but I would rather have a bit thicker oil in an aircooled motor.
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Running 5w-30 Amsoil ASL that was leftovers from vehicle oil changes in my Tecumseh Sno-King 5.5 snowblower and in my Troy-bilt 6.75 Briggs and Stratton mower, and they run great with no oil loss. Oil always looks nice and golden, and I bogged down the underpowered snow blower routinely with the record snow fall we had here this winter.
 
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I don't stick to a particular weight/brand at all. My Amsoil ASL is all used up now, so next time it is looking like some old Mobil 10w-40 V-twin oil that will go in them. These engines are just bulletproof. They are great for using up 2 or 3 year old partial quarts laying around in the garage.
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I run 10W-30 Max Life semi-synthetic in my Craftsman lawn tractor with a Briggs & Stratton 18.5 hp engine. It loves it- runs smooth, no oil consumption, & no smoking.

If I were gonna run a straight 30W I'd use Rotella, Delo, or other HDEO.
 
The manual for my Craftsman says that straight 30 is preferred. 5w30 is allowed, but the mower will tend to burn it more than straight 30 so the oil should be checked more often.

Since I check the oil every time I mow, this isn't an issue for me. And over the course of a summer I might have to add oil once, and that's more to keep the level at the "full" line than anything else.
 
10W30 is fine. Been running it in Tecumseh and Briggs-engined Craftsman mowers for 20 or so years or as long as 10W30 has been common w/o problems.

I can't remember when our autos started using 10W30 - 1982 or so? Pretty sure the Pinto took 10W40, the Pontiac J2000 was for sure 10W30 - it was my first car. That car (named Thunder as it would backfire as the computer was half-dead!) taught me how to fix cars. A blessing in disguise. My 2.5 year old, on my lap now, is getting a junker as a first car to learn the same lessons.

Once the cars started using 10W30, that's all we bought.

Up north, we were cutting over an acre with 3 HP self-propelled mowers. Took all Saturday, every week. It sucked. We'd change oil every 20 or 25 hours and it would get real dark. This was very hard service - we wore several sets of wheels off of them before they wore out. And wear out they did - about every six years - they would gradually lose power and smoke bad. Have fond memories of going to Sears with Dad to buy wheels and cogs...

later,
b
 
"I can't remember when our autos started using 10W30 - 1982 or so? "
I started working in a gas station in 1964 and we sold it then.
I'm not sure what year the auto manfs. recommended/required it though.
 
I've used it in my Craftsman lawn mower before. No problems. Now I'm trying out 0w-30 Castrol Syntec (GC) in it. It's a 17.5hp engine that usually mows for 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, and I don't shut it off until I'm done each time.
 
I recollect 10W-30 being introduced in the late 1950's. I was bestowed with the same magic properties then as synthetics are today. The mantra then was to break your engine in with SAE-20 before switching to the 10W-30 which lubricated so well that the engine wouldn't break in properly on 10W-30.

Regards, Gary in Sandy Eggo
 
Originally Posted By: glazer1972
Mine is a 1998 22 hp Air Cooled Kohler and the manual says 10w30 (32F and up) and 5w30 (32F and down).

Believe my '94 Kohler Command CV12.5 (12.5 HP) calls for the same...
 
I have my briggs 6.5 hp mower running Redline 10w40. Seems to work fine so far. how many hours can you run a mower before you should change the oil? I have about 3 hours on the current fill
 
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50 hours is the standard on a decent commercial grade mower, 30 hours should be fine for one with a decent air filtration system.

As for your standard push mower, 5-30 or 10-30 is almost as good at straigh 30. Don't sweat it at all.
 
Ran 5w/20 in my Craftsman lawn mower with a 4.5? hp Techemse last season . In the Redding Kalifornia 100*f during the summer. I cut the lawn 5 to 7 days in the summer and it takes 30 minutes probably 10 months a year. This year I am using 5w/50 syntech I got cleaning my dads garage. The lawn mower is a 1998 model.
 
On my Murray push mower w/5.5hp B&S I usually change the oil annually, which works out to about 15-20 hours. Same for our Craftsman 5hp B&S tiller, which usually gets 5-10 hrs a year on it.
The Craftsman lawn tractor with the 18.5hp B&S gets changed in the spring & in the fall as it gets run year round, about 100-150 hrs a year.
 
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