Export thread

Hey everyone,

I'm new to the forum so my bad if the answer is already posted, I couldn't seem to find it.

I have a 4 cycle craftsman lawn edger model 316.773800

In the owners manual it states, "Use a high-quality SAE 30 weight oil of API service class SF, SG, SH."

Everywhere I look I can only seem to find API SJ oil. Will API SJ be safe to use in this lawn edger? If not, where might I find SF, SG, or SH?

The S grading system is for automobiles and has nothing to do with small engines. It means the the oil has been tested by the American Petroleum Institute and approved that oil for certain vehicles depending on the year of manufacture. In you case the second letter is what you look at. That go it ascending order ABC etc. in your unit you may use any oil SF and above. Hope this makes sense.

API SJ rating supersedes the other ratings and is therefore "better" than the other grades mentioned.

Rivets said:

The S grading system is for automobiles and has nothing to do with small engines. It means the the oil has been tested by the American Petroleum Institute and approved that oil for certain vehicles depending on the year of manufacture. In you case the second letter is what you look at. That go it ascending order ABC etc. in your unit you may use any oil SF and above. Hope this makes sense.

Click to expand...

I am curious why it is listed on a bottle for "lawnmower oil" and mentioned specifically in the manual if it's ultimately irrelevant.

Stems117 said:

I am curious why it is listed on a bottle for "lawnmower oil" and mentioned specifically in the manual if it's ultimately irrelevant.

Click to expand...

Because people point blank refuse to buy lawn mower oil & insist on using car oil despite car oils being totally unsuited for air cooled mower engines.

I find this side splittingly funny when a customer refuses to buy mower oil for $ 16 / qt and then asks about fully synthetic at $25 / qt

Why are car oils completely unsuitable for mower engines?

I use Kinetix 10W-30 small engine oil in the majority of my equipment. It's not synthetic and has a zinc additive. Is this a good choice?

Here we go again...

Darryl G said:

Here we go again...

Click to expand...

You said it......

Darryl G said:

Here we go again...

Click to expand...

Hahaha, in my research before posting in this forum I was gathering mixed feelings on this. It sounds like this has been debated before but ultimately I am safe to use API SJ on my edger despite it saying SF, SG, SH. Apparently it's not even relevant to small engines. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All oil starts the same.
It gets broken down into parts, filtered cleaned then reassembled.
Air cooled engine oils are specifically formulated for air cooled engines that have higher range of running temperatures.
They also have a lot of moisture dispersants & anti corrosion addatives because mowers & most air cooled engines sit around for months not being used.

Automotive oils are designed to work best in an engine which runs between 80 & 120 deg C and is fairly constant temperature all over due to the water cooling.
Water dispersion is not a big problem as the engines usually get used daily or at least weekly all year round.

Putting the 3rd best choice into your engine will not make it blow up.
At worst it will allow excessive corrosion during the off season & may knock a few hours off the engine life.
At best it is just costing you more .

The most important thing is how often you change it followed by when you change it.
Mower engines are low speed engines so suffer higher loads than auto engines many of which now days idle near the actual running speed of mower engines.
When something like a cam follower rubs on a cam, it relies upon the oil to maintain a film between the 2 of them.
The faster this happens the easier it is for the oil to remain there.
The slower it happens the greater the chance of the follower running dry by the time it is on the lowering ramp of the cam.

There are a squillion little things like this and that goes a long way to understanding the difference between an engine that does 5,000 trouble free hours and one that is worn out in 500 hours.

Now I only studied oils in one unit that was 2 hours a week for 13 weeks and in that time we covered oils, greases, cutting fluids & coolants so an expert I am definately not.
However that has given me enough knowledge to understand the difference between oils and to realize that 120% of all the advertising is pure bull.
Now 99.99% of the people who rabbit on about oils have never had 1 minute of formal education about lubricants and in most cases do not actually know the meanings of terms like "Detergent" and the difference between a detergent & a dispersant. Even fewer can understand oil test data, let alone what they mean to their engines.

You car run your edger on light machine oil SAE 0 to 10 if you really want to.
All that will happen is you will burn almost all of it every time you use the trimmer and you will be paying $ 50 /qt for it.

So no matter what the engine is, the best oil will always be the oil that was specifically blended to do that job.
Lots of other blends will also work, and some will be better than others.

OTOH finding a single oil that is OK for everything you own and using it on everything again will be fine just so long as it is changed at the recommended interval if not earlier.
The big problem comes when someone puts a fully synthetic 50,000 mile change interval oil into a mower and decide it never needs to be changed.

primerbulb120 said:

Why are car oils completely unsuitable for mower engines?

I use Kinetix 10W-30 small engine oil in the majority of my equipment. It's not synthetic and has a zinc additive. Is this a good choice?

Click to expand...

I use some Kinetix oils around the shop and have normal results. Kinetix markets the high zinc rating which my understanding is one of the additives in the "formulated for use in small engines" so Briggs, Kohler, Kawasaki, etc all use zinc in their oil but just don't mention it. Since small engines operate at higher temps than auto engines, the oil is formulated better against thermal breakdown.

Most people get hung up over the API oil rating, but unless you are needing to meet some Nasa spec, the oil rating has no bearing on what the oil is going to be used in. We are arguing over SH, SJ oil when I believe the current API spec is SN. The most important thing for most people should be is the oil rated for S whatever for use in gas engines, and C whatever for use in diesel engines.

Fundamentals of Lubrication 101: Any oil is better than an absence of oil.

Advanced Lubrication 102: Some oils are marginally better than others for a given application.

Stems117: Yes, it indeed has been debated here before, and every other power equipment site on the planet I suspect. Nobody here is going to fault you for asking though. The issue often comes down to those who insist that "their" oil, which is designed for automobiles, is better than an oil specifically designed for use in air-cooled power equipment and refuse to acknowledge that they could be wrong.

Thank you all for your input and fast responses!

cpurvis said:

Fundamentals of Lubrication 101: Any oil is better than an absence of oil.

Advanced Lubrication 102: Some oils are marginally better than others for a given application.

Click to expand...

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
:laughing::laughing::laughing:

If the manufacturer says SAE30, i put in sae30. if it says 10W30, i put in 10w30. I mostly use valvoline oils.

Kawasaki branded oil does say on the 1 qt bottle "contains zinc"....... just sayin...

Auto engine :water cooled

Lawn mower engine: air cooled

Different friction temperatures. Viscosity breakdown happens.

A car engine has bearings, most lawn mower engines have a chunk of aluminum spinning around a steel crank, metal to metal.

I use Honda One in my lawn mowers, someone left a case at our shop.

The Harley uses 25-60 dino.

Each engine class has its own needs. Your engine needs air cooled engine oil.

7394 said:

Kawasaki branded oil does say on the 1 qt bottle "contains zinc"....... just sayin...

Click to expand...

If that's the KTech, Citgo manufactures it. Just a fyi. ?

All oil threads start the same.....

Fish said:

Agll oil threads start the same.....

Click to expand...

Wrong! My oil threads start out better and they last longer too!!! :laughing:

Darryl G said:

Wrong! My oil threads start out better and they last longer too!!! :laughing:

Click to expand...

Must be "synthetic"!!!!

Amsoil....

cpurvis said:

Amsoil....

Click to expand...

YOU TROLL! :laughing::laughing:

Scrubcadet10 said:

If that's the KTech, Citgo manufactures it. Just a fyi. 

Click to expand...

Yep, that is true, I used it while I was under warranty, now i use something I like better with 1,200ppm of zinc in it.