I’m not following you.
We have to excuse Mr. Snowman’s ignorance. Conventional multi-weight oils have only been around for ~65 years, and synthetic oil has been marketed in The US for (IIRC) for only about 45 years. In a few years, he might be able to sort all of this out.
SAE 30 is the preferred engine oil.
Greater oil consumption may be experienced with 10W30.
I understand that. I don’t understand why 10w30 would be worse than synthetic 5w30 as far as oil consumption.
Doesn’t matter really. I generally use leftover engine oil and 1 qt 30 weight in mine. It’s lasted 17 years, so I guess it’ll be ok.
It’s literally a multi-weight oil.
[quote=“TheWonderful90s, post:34, topic:181598”]
Are you suggesting that that engineers who decided the optimal oil to use in the engine (an engine that had been around for decades at this point, and used in a variety of applications), would recommend an oil that would cause the engine to only last for 250k-300k miles?
I think it will take more than a few years.
It’s rare that I say this, but I have used this phrase in the past when dealing with a customer who does not grasp what I’m saying: “I can explain it for you but I can’t understand it for you.”
I corrected my answer above. The reason why the manual does not say that there will be excessive oil consumption when running the Briggs with 5W30 is that according to that chart, 5W30 can only be used for winter operation. 10W30 can be used in the summer, and the manual states that excessive consumption of the 10W30 can occur when the temperature is above 80F. 5W30 above 80F would probably be even worse.
Yes I am. I read that Henry Ford would go to junk yards to see which parts weren’t worn out so that they could be redesigned a bit more cheaply. There is also the CAFE requirement from the EPA which helped get rid of 10W40 and replace it with thinner oils since it will reduce fuel consumption by a couple %, so auto makers started specifying thinner oils due to CAFE. If a newer model of your vehicle says 5W20 when it used to be 10W30 you probably don’t want to continue to use that after the first 100k miles or so if you want your engine to last to the upper 200k miles.
I do. And we’ve owned 5 past vehicles that have gone past 300k miles.
Makes sense, I guess. Sort of. Not arguing with you or the Briggs people, but I always assumed operating temp would be somewhat similar once the engine warmed up, regardless of ambient temp. Less so on an air cooled engine, of course (no thermostat). But, yeah. Makes some sense.
On the Briggs diagram 5W30 is for use at under 40F only, but synthetic 5W30 can be used at all temperatures where the SAE 30 can. I didn’t realize you said compared to synthetic 5W30 in your post, so I didn’t actually answer your question properly.
A multi weight oil such as 5W30 is made from SAE 5 base stock, and then viscosity modifiers are added to make it thicker to be equivalent SAE 30 before it gets to water cooled engine running temperature. Above this temperature the viscosity modifiers stop working properly and it starts to become more like SAE 5. This is really bad. Synthetic oils don’t have as much viscosity modifier or don’t need it at all and so they don’t have this problem, which allows synthetic oils to perform well at much higher temperatures.
That’s certainly not a common expectation, nor one that will be reasonably achieved. By the time an average car is driven 300,000 miles, it will be over 20 years old. By that time far more than the engine and transmission will be worn out.
I do see the occasional 300K, even 400K mile vehicle. Half are clean as a whistle, half are rusted through and threadbare.

so I didn’t actually answer your question properly.
Actually I don’t think you have answered any question properly/correctly since joining this forum.

I don’t think you have answered any question properly/correctly since joining this forum.
He likes “alternate facts”.