help ..quick question...
i have some standard castrol 10w 40w oil left over from my audi, can you use it in a petrol mower? its only a cheap £100 petrol mower, wondered if i can stick the castrol in there?
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I think lawnmowers require single grade oil, usually SAE30. Not sure what a multigrade will do to it tho.
As the mower was only GBP100 (sorry, no pound symbol on my kbd) I'd jsut stick it in anyway.
I used to buy the cheap'n'cheerful lawnmowers from B&Q and run them without any servicing for 2-3 years before scrapping and buying another one.
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My father's run the same Mountfield with Briggs & Stratton 3.5hp on whatever multigrade car oil was to hand at the time, since buying it in 1982. The only problem with the mower in all those seasons have been a few sets of carburettor seals, nothing to do with the choice of oil.
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isnt there the issue that the mower is 2 stroke and not a 4 stroke car engine? car oil could possibly do damage?
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If it is a 4 stroke then you can use multigrade oil. You might find it using a tiny bit more oil.
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Forgot to mention that as far as I remember Briggs and stratton say its ok to use multigrade in their 4 strkes. (It's cheaper to use and wont harm the engine.)
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I had an Atco petrol lawnmover purchased in 1982 when we moved house. Our lawns comprise approx. 0.5acres so cutting takes 1 hour. Lasted 20 years using multigrade engine oil.
Eventually scrapped - decoke at 17 years showed no bore wear, but carb worn out, ignition becoming faulty and body of lawnmower falling to bits.
Conclusion: engine well maintained with good quality oil should last longer than rest of lawnmower..
madf
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I've had a variety of old mowers, rotavators, etc over the years and I have always used any old oil that came to hand. They seem to last forever, and when things do go wrong it's always been the mower frame rusting to pieces or the wheels falling off.
2-strokes don't seem fussy either - they use advanced Trabant technology.
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I always used 5w40 car oil in my Briggs & Stratton 3.5hp, It got stolen a few weeks ago, and the new one has a B&S quattro, and I'll do the same. It said in the manual that mutigrade is OK, but oil consumption may be higher, I found it used none over the year, and also gave less blue smoke when first started after being stood for a few weeks.
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Hi
Our mowers use any old oil
One is a 1979 3hp vertical pull mountfield m3 major and it still runs like new albeit i have replaced the points and condensor 3 times and a plug every 3 years it still cuts the grass.
The other being some mowerland mower we bought when the above stopped working only to find the carb fuel pump had failed (£2.50) the mower has a 5hp Quantum (B&S) it works as well as old faithfull.
All owned from new above
I do tend to use the proper spark plug instead of a car one though.
(iam not a mechanic)
Martin Winters
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My 4-stroke B&S-powered mower ran beautifully until I put it in for its first service, since after which it ran like a dog. I was stunned by the price of a service - £80!!! I sorted it out myself (mainly cables badly adjusted). Since then, I've changed the oil regularly, sharpened the blade regularly and blown through the airfilter with my airline from time to time. I started with SAE30, but it seems happy running on whatever is around.
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My B&S (new last year) is run on Mobil 1, which is changed every 50,000 blades of grass.
Seriously, that's all I had when it was new, and I'm sure the handbook said a synth would be OK.
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I have 4 mowers, 2 inherited and 2 acquired when at least 10yrs old. The youngest is a Ransome Hahn circa early 1970s [Briggs Stratton]. The oldest is a rotary Atco [Villiers aluminium], mid 1960s. I can think of few better ways of wasting money than buying a new lawn mower.
For the past 25 years I have used the old 10-40 from my 10,000 oil changes.
Waste not want not!
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