Is the Kohler Courage really that bad?
- Thread starter alienball
- Start date
It's not thinner except when cold. You would have to research that to know it though.
Not trying to personally attack, was just trying to help dispel the myths.
bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
And there in lies one of the problems
My L300 was designed to run on 20W 50
Latter versions were designed to run on 10w40
If I put 10W40 in this engine now it leaks past everything when cold
And you are also wrong about splashing.
Synthetics & semi synthetics have lower surface tensions so they can wet surfaces better
In the advertising B S they call it "magnetic" .
Wetting the surfaces allows for much better boundry lubrication like you have on the upper & lower crank bushes .
Synthetics splash with smaller droplets because of the lower surface tension.
THis has two effects on splash lube
1) the oil mist travels further so you get more oil up into rocker areas particularly on vertical cylinders
2) closer regions like the top bush get less oil volume because the drops that hit the cases then drip down to retentions wells around things like the upper crank bush are smaller.
Not a problem with a full pressure feed engine but a big problem with full splash.
You are perfectly entitled to use whatever oil you like.'It is your mower & your money
However what has to be empathised is synthetics are not a magic bullet like all of the deciples preach.
And this is what has to get countered .
People like to think they are smarter than the person next door & always up to date with all the modern trends & technologies.
However what they read is often wrong .
They believe this and then set off preaching this factually incorrect religion and by shear volume myth become fact.
The easy way to tell what is BS from what it truth is testimonials
The more testimonials you see the more the "whatever" is an act of faith and not fact .
My formal training was in the applied sciences where nothing is considered to be 100% right , just the best description / explaination that we have at the time and for that to be accepted it has to be reliably repeatable.
Just think of all of the trash that has sucked people in over the years
How many times have you seen some magic goop poured into an engine , run for 5 minutes then the sump plug removed & that vehicle do X laps of a circuit.
Now what people don't know is the engines were specially built to do that and X+1 = BANG .
Then there was spark enhansers, all going to double you gas mileage ( they didn't )
And of course the magic foam filters that we were shown gave more power & better milage, till the bores polished smooth in 1/2 the miles that a paper one would have run.
And when I was young, oil coolers were the go to for more power, better milage less engine wear , etc, etc, etc ( They didn't )
People used to throw virgins into volcanos to appease the volcano god because they lacked the basic scientific knowledge to understand geology and if you asked them they knew they were right because it worked ( well most of time ) .
People blindly believe "influencers" because they lack the education needed to understand that what is being preached is toss or are just plain old too lazy to think about it .
The plain truth of it is mower engines are so basic that the oil used will make little difference provided it is within the operating viscosities.
Some might work marginally better than others but if it was not designed to use the higher qualities of the superiour oils then using the superiour oils will do nothing other than to cost more money.
The refineries set about to make synthetic oils economically way back in the 70's during the oil crisis.
They could make oil from both gas & forest products but it was way too expensive compared to mineral oil.
We still make terpentine from oil & from leaves which is why the bottles will say "mineral terpentine " or "Vegetable Terpentine" .
The latter is about 20 times more expensive than the former.
Oil companies spent a fortune trying to develop alternatives to Middle East oil and we ended up with synthetic oil
However it is more expensive so they have to talk up it's "miracle" properties.
The oil companies also make a much larger profit margin on synthetic oil so right now they are pushing it hard.
In the same mannar as spark plug makers are trying to convince us that exotic material spark plugs will work miracles ( they don't )
In parallel but not directly connected to the synthetic oil was the EPA's mandate about emissions during start up
In order to reduce this, engines have to fire on the very first cylinder that comes onto compression.
However the viscous drag of the old thick oils slowed the engines down sufficiently to prevent this happening till the engine had built up enough momentum.
The answer to this was thinner & lighter oils that put a lot less load on the engine.
This in turn was enabled by real time computer control over the dimensions of engine parts plus advances in metallurgy that allowed much tighter controls over the raw materials specifications .
But Bob the Oil guy will tell you all of this is because he uses a different oil and the feeble minded believe this without question.
My L300 was designed to run on 20W 50
Latter versions were designed to run on 10w40
If I put 10W40 in this engine now it leaks past everything when cold
And you are also wrong about splashing.
Synthetics & semi synthetics have lower surface tensions so they can wet surfaces better
In the advertising B S they call it "magnetic" .
Wetting the surfaces allows for much better boundry lubrication like you have on the upper & lower crank bushes .
Synthetics splash with smaller droplets because of the lower surface tension.
THis has two effects on splash lube
1) the oil mist travels further so you get more oil up into rocker areas particularly on vertical cylinders
2) closer regions like the top bush get less oil volume because the drops that hit the cases then drip down to retentions wells around things like the upper crank bush are smaller.
Not a problem with a full pressure feed engine but a big problem with full splash.
You are perfectly entitled to use whatever oil you like.'It is your mower & your money
However what has to be empathised is synthetics are not a magic bullet like all of the deciples preach.
And this is what has to get countered .
People like to think they are smarter than the person next door & always up to date with all the modern trends & technologies.
However what they read is often wrong .
They believe this and then set off preaching this factually incorrect religion and by shear volume myth become fact.
The easy way to tell what is BS from what it truth is testimonials
The more testimonials you see the more the "whatever" is an act of faith and not fact .
My formal training was in the applied sciences where nothing is considered to be 100% right , just the best description / explaination that we have at the time and for that to be accepted it has to be reliably repeatable.
Just think of all of the trash that has sucked people in over the years
How many times have you seen some magic goop poured into an engine , run for 5 minutes then the sump plug removed & that vehicle do X laps of a circuit.
Now what people don't know is the engines were specially built to do that and X+1 = BANG .
Then there was spark enhansers, all going to double you gas mileage ( they didn't )
And of course the magic foam filters that we were shown gave more power & better milage, till the bores polished smooth in 1/2 the miles that a paper one would have run.
And when I was young, oil coolers were the go to for more power, better milage less engine wear , etc, etc, etc ( They didn't )
People used to throw virgins into volcanos to appease the volcano god because they lacked the basic scientific knowledge to understand geology and if you asked them they knew they were right because it worked ( well most of time ) .
People blindly believe "influencers" because they lack the education needed to understand that what is being preached is toss or are just plain old too lazy to think about it .
The plain truth of it is mower engines are so basic that the oil used will make little difference provided it is within the operating viscosities.
Some might work marginally better than others but if it was not designed to use the higher qualities of the superiour oils then using the superiour oils will do nothing other than to cost more money.
The refineries set about to make synthetic oils economically way back in the 70's during the oil crisis.
They could make oil from both gas & forest products but it was way too expensive compared to mineral oil.
We still make terpentine from oil & from leaves which is why the bottles will say "mineral terpentine " or "Vegetable Terpentine" .
The latter is about 20 times more expensive than the former.
Oil companies spent a fortune trying to develop alternatives to Middle East oil and we ended up with synthetic oil
However it is more expensive so they have to talk up it's "miracle" properties.
The oil companies also make a much larger profit margin on synthetic oil so right now they are pushing it hard.
In the same mannar as spark plug makers are trying to convince us that exotic material spark plugs will work miracles ( they don't )
In parallel but not directly connected to the synthetic oil was the EPA's mandate about emissions during start up
In order to reduce this, engines have to fire on the very first cylinder that comes onto compression.
However the viscous drag of the old thick oils slowed the engines down sufficiently to prevent this happening till the engine had built up enough momentum.
The answer to this was thinner & lighter oils that put a lot less load on the engine.
This in turn was enabled by real time computer control over the dimensions of engine parts plus advances in metallurgy that allowed much tighter controls over the raw materials specifications .
But Bob the Oil guy will tell you all of this is because he uses a different oil and the feeble minded believe this without question.
That would be the single cylinder this one is a twin. Twin seems to be a good engine loud but good.
bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
reported
I agree with most of what you are saying; except; Who would ever guess that these cover bolts would come loose? It would be fine if there was a "Crystal ball" that we could look at to tell us. I guess I must be one of those "dull" people, even 'tho I have had a Canadian Mechanics liscence for over 35 years!