Drain the oil in my generator for the winter? Really?

[how01e]

A friend of mine tells me I need to drain the oil out of my generator for the winter. Says it might freeze and crack the motor. It only gets down to 15 degrees, maybe 10 here in the winter (southern Oregon).
Is he right?
I suppose I should change it every year (or more often?) anyway. But I just don't put that many hours on it in a season of RVing.
What say you all?
Thanks,
​​​​​​​SJ

[Redapple63]

A friend of mine tells me I need to drain the oil out of my generator for the winter. Says it might freeze and crack the motor. It only gets down to 15 degrees, maybe 10 here in the winter (southern Oregon).
Is he right?
I suppose I should change it every year (or more often?) anyway. But I just don't put that many hours on it in a season of RVing.
What say you all?
Thanks,
​​​​​​​SJ

I had an Onan Marquis Gold 5500 for 14 years. Never drained the oil. On edit: Never drained the oil due to temperature.

I was a gas generator, so I did run Stabil and operate the generator with a load about every 6 weeks.

Current generator is a Yamaha 3k and it has been sitting in a shed since October. Ran it once in November.

I think you are ok to not drain the oil.

Bill

[Hoopy Frood]

Definitely the most ridiculous thing I've read today.

[Soundsailor]

Can oil freeze? According to my brief research, the answer is yes, but would have to get very, very cold. So I think you're OK with not draining the oil.

[huntindog]

I sure am glad that is not true. If it were, think of how many people would forget to put oil back in it!

[Harvestmoon]

Your friend must be thinking of something else. Motor oil will certainly thicken and could even gel at the most extreme cold temperatures that can occur in nature, but regardless will never expand like water does. My routine for off season generator storage is to change the oil so that it sits over winter with clean oil and then drain as much fuel out as possible. Then I start it and let it run until the fuel goes dry and it quits. This circulates the clean oil and gets all of the fuel out of the system that would otherwise go stale from prolonged disuse and also makes it safe to store in my basement. I store it indoors not because I am worried about it freezing but because it is clean and dry and somewhat warm and ready to start in case I need to press it into emergency service for a power failure.

[DougW9876]

There is no need to drain the oil form a motor for storage, millions of engines spend the winter in extremely cold temperatures with no problems from the oil.

[FT4NOW]

I would say your friend should probably drain his blinker fluid to be safe. We had the Onan in our 399 in Idaho and frequently had 0F days, no issues with the generator and no, I didn't drain the oil.

[Riverbug]

There are so many great topics with gray areas that allow for some interesting points of view, but this is not one of them. I mean, if that were true, there'd be no vehicles sitting outside between November and March anywhere north of the 41st parallel. That's a lot of vehicles. How do all those snowmobiles sit outside overnight in Tuktoyaktuk? Your friend needs a new source for information. I jest. But true.

[MoonShadow_1911]

I sure am glad that is not true. If it were, think of how many people would forget to put oil back in it!

Or, on the flip side, drain the oil from their vehicles as well. It's an engine, just like a generator.