Synthetic Oil?

From:

FAQs - Honda Power Equipment: Honda Generators, Lawn Mowers ..

"Honda engines are developed, tested and certified with petroleum based motor oils as a lubricant. Synthetic oils may be used; however, any motor oil used in our engines must meet all oil requirements as stated in the owner's manual. In addition, recommended oil change intervals must be followed."

I wouldn't bother. But, you can, if you wish.

Most of those small engines recommend oil changes in a frequency that there would be no cost benefit. Unless of course you have access to synthetics cheaper.

Even if you don't save any money on the oil, using the correct long life synthetics will reduce wear and tear dramatically in the motors as well as protecting them from sludge and other unwanted formations and make them far less likely to be damaged if they overheat......synthetic just evaporates rather than burning and leaving carbon everywhere.....a great plus point!

Also, on cold mornings, the synthetic gets to the vital parts even quicker......

The extra life of the units will more than make up for the extra costs.......and if you accidentally miss an oil change (always possible with any oil!), the negative effects will be far less.....

Any oil that Honda accepts and is marked as LongLife 3 or LL3, will be fine.....I buy mine on ebay and save a great deal of money!!!

A friend of mine is a pretty savvy car enthusiast, and owns the local indoor kart race track. He switched to pure synthetics in his race kart engines quite a while ago. They get a lot of use. Much less wear, and good economics. I imagine your Honda portable power engines are pretty similar to his kart engines, but perhaps get fewer hours of use per year. I would use the same viscosity as Honda recommends.

David

Thats good info, tuned Kart engines last longer on synthetic!! I can live with that!!!

Hi Andy, Thanks for the post. I've been looking for any reference to Longlife3 or LL3 marked on different brands of synthetic oil and can't find anything. Can you give me any more info regarding this? Thanks, Ron

LL3 is (within my limited knowledge & experience) is always 5W30.

If its synthetic and marked 5W40, its LongLife 1 or 2. (Longlife 1 is not marked with the 1, its just LongLife). I have used them all, all were excellent.

Check out here:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_oil

The three (3) version is simply the latest version and can often be allowed to stay in the engine for up to 20,000 miles....even in diesels....

I have had a Mitsubishi 9 seater mini bus many years ago that achieved well over 260,000 Kms and ran just like new.......then I sold it.....

I have used synthetics since the middle/end of the 80's, running in is significantly slowed down, which is the only slightly negative effect that I have noticed.

I was given "agri" petrol once in Italy, the bus overheated for about 4 hours driving, checked timing and replaced water continually, but the synthetic stopped any damage.....a topup with Super+ eventually fixed the problems for good!!!!