Oil flush

[ABMax24]

I seen a push mower with a briggs on at lowes and it said never change the oil, just add.

I seen those too, Briggs and Stratton also went bankrupt in 2020, so maybe not the best idea?

Really it was done to market the mower to consumers that don't like to change oil.

We have a local oil company that tried extending oil change intervals 50% to 200% on their large natural gas compressor engines during COVID to save on maintenance costs. Now they can't figure out why their engine downtimes and failure rates (particularly on crankshafts and camshafts) are above industry average.

Oil is cheap.

 

[duramaxman05]

I seen those too, Briggs and Stratton also went bankrupt in 2020, so maybe not the best idea?

Really it was done to market the mower to consumers that don't like to change oil.

We have a local oil company that tried extending oil change intervals 50% to 200% on their large natural gas compressor engines during COVID to save on maintenance costs. Now they can't figure out why their engine downtimes and failure rates (particularly on crankshafts and camshafts) are above industry average.

Oil is cheap.

The place I used to work, we did oil samples everytime we would service a truck or piece of equipment. We used Schaefer's oil. Some of the semi trucks were at 40,000 mile intervals and gas pickups were up to 12,000 miles. As long as the samples come back good, we would run them that long. Samples were also good when you started to get some extra metal in the oil. We had some case 95xt skidsteers, a couple had over 30,000 hours on the original engines. I didn't believe it either until we went through the service records. Good oil and proper maintenance makes a machine

 

[clux]

I seen those too, Briggs and Stratton also went bankrupt in 2020, so maybe not the best idea?

Really it was done to market the mower to consumers that don't like to change oil.

We have a local oil company that tried extending oil change intervals 50% to 200% on their large natural gas compressor engines during COVID to save on maintenance costs. Now they can't figure out why their engine downtimes and failure rates (particularly on crankshafts and camshafts) are above industry average.

Oil is cheap.

I've done 10,000 mile synthetic OCI on my diesel pickup since it was out of warranty, 355,000 and 22 years and still pulling strong.

 

[Ashful]

I think our john deere 3033r said 400hr or 1 year for service. That is even with its first service. Seems crazy to me. I'm still old school.

The operative word being "or", I guess. How many CUT owners are coming anywhere near 400 hours per year? I can say I've never hit that, and I think I use mine more hours than most.

I do all of my equipment yearly, except one specialty car that spec's "absolute maximum 6 months", which gets done twice yearly. It might mean 7 quarts of full-synthetic every 2000 miles, but I really don't care about that small expense. I've always been told that even low-hours machinery suffers from corrosive contaminants trapped in crankcase oil, if it's not changed once or twice per year.

Fluids are always cheaper than the machine into which I'm feeding them, so I never see any point in varying from the manufacturer's prescription. My 1963 Cub Cadet was still going strong when I sold it, as is my 1973 Briggs-powered Toro push mower, just following a pretty simple yearly oil change.

 

[ABMax24]

I've done 10,000 mile synthetic OCI on my diesel pickup since it was out of warranty, 355,000 and 22 years and still pulling strong.

For a truck without EGR or DPF sure. Soot loading and fuel dilution are a big issue though on newer diesels. The oil is maxed out on contaminants long before the actual oil begins to break down. On top of that newer diesel oils run less additives to limit catalyst and DPF poisoning due to oil consumption, which does reduce service intervals.

My 6.7 Powerstroke is recommended for 6,000 mile intervals based on my use case. It gets done every 6,000 miles religiously, to R&R a long block is in the neighborhood of $15k, oil is cheap.

 

[clux]

For a truck without EGR or DPF sure. Soot loading and fuel dilution are a big issue though on newer diesels. The oil is maxed out on contaminants long before the actual oil begins to break down. On top of that newer diesel oils run less additives to limit catalyst and DPF poisoning due to oil consumption, which does reduce service intervals.

My 6.7 Powerstroke is recommended for 6,000 mile intervals based on my use case. It gets done every 6,000 miles religiously, to R&R a long block is in the neighborhood of $15k, oil is cheap.

My 7.3 dealer recommended OCI was 5,000. And it's HEUI are about as hard on motor oil as any engine.
When I do oil analysis they have always said run another 2000 miles next change.
Without doing an occasional oil analysis you're just guessing, could be you need to change more often, could be you could go longer.

 

[duramaxman05]

The operative word being "or", I guess. How many CUT owners are coming anywhere near 400 hours per year? I can say I've never hit that, and I think I use mine more hours than most.

I do all of my equipment yearly, except one specialty car that spec's "absolute maximum 6 months", which gets done twice yearly. It might mean 7 quarts of full-synthetic every 2000 miles, but I really don't care about that small expense. I've always been told that even low-hours machinery suffers from corrosive contaminants trapped in crankcase oil, if it's not changed once or twice per year.

Fluids are always cheaper than the machine into which I'm feeding them, so I never see any point in varying from the manufacturer's prescription. My 1963 Cub Cadet was still going strong when I sold it, as is my 1973 Briggs-powered Toro push mower, just following a pretty simple yearly oil change.

I do all my stuff every year or when due. We put 40hrs on our tractor in a years time so it doesn't get used much.

 

[Ashful]

I do all my stuff every year or when due. We put 40hrs on our tractor in a years time so it doesn't get used much.

Interesting to hear what you think of the 3033r hour meter. The meter on my 855 used to rack up only ~70 hours per year, which I knew was a lot less hours than I used it. The hour meter on that machine accumulated time at a rate proportional to engine RPM, and most of my hours were low RPM loader and driving, or even idling while I worked next to it. It was actually a sensible system, which I thought was pretty standard among tractors, as hours on a diesel at low RPM aren't the same as hours at PTO RPM.

But I'm racking up hours at nearly twice that rate on the 3033r, despite almost never letting it idle (thanks to Tier 4 DPF). It seems to be counting at 1:1 even at low RPM, if not scaling even a little faster at PTO RPM. Not sure how that will impact resale, I've always bragged that I've been able to sell every tractor I've ever owned near the price I paid for it, as I keep them clean, maintain them like new, and don't rack up a ton of hours... until this machine.

 

[clux]

Yeah the old cable drive hours were based on rpm at rated pto speed, so if you weren't running them hard you didn't accumulate much time. But just puttering around is probably harder on motor oil than running hard in terms of water accumulation and fuel dilution.

 

[Shank]

Interesting to hear what you think of the 3033r hour meter. The meter on my 855 used to rack up only ~70 hours per year, which I knew was a lot less hours than I used it. The hour meter on that machine accumulated time at a rate proportional to engine RPM, and most of my hours were low RPM loader and driving, or even idling while I worked next to it. It was actually a sensible system, which I thought was pretty standard among tractors, as hours on a diesel at low RPM aren't the same as hours at PTO RPM.

But I'm racking up hours at nearly twice that rate on the 3033r, despite almost never letting it idle (thanks to Tier 4 DPF). It seems to be counting at 1:1 even at low RPM, if not scaling even a little faster at PTO RPM. Not sure how that will impact resale, I've always bragged that I've been able to sell every tractor I've ever owned near the price I paid for it, as I keep them clean, maintain them like new, and don't rack up a ton of hours... until this machine.

My 90's Cub Cadet seemed to have a similar phenomenon with the hour meter... until I found out someone disconnected it. (wife usually mows and it doesn't get used enough to plan service based on hours).

 

[duramaxman05]

Interesting to hear what you think of the 3033r hour meter. The meter on my 855 used to rack up only ~70 hours per year, which I knew was a lot less hours than I used it. The hour meter on that machine accumulated time at a rate proportional to engine RPM, and most of my hours were low RPM loader and driving, or even idling while I worked next to it. It was actually a sensible system, which I thought was pretty standard among tractors, as hours on a diesel at low RPM aren't the same as hours at PTO RPM.

But I'm racking up hours at nearly twice that rate on the 3033r, despite almost never letting it idle (thanks to Tier 4 DPF). It seems to be counting at 1:1 even at low RPM, if not scaling even a little faster at PTO RPM. Not sure how that will impact resale, I've always bragged that I've been able to sell every tractor I've ever owned near the price I paid for it, as I keep them clean, maintain them like new, and don't rack up a ton of hours... until this machine.

I guess I really never paid much attention to that and actually didn't know. It makes sense with the cable driven tachometer. On all the new computerized stuff it would suprise me if it was programed one way or the other. Yeah and don't get me started on the t4 bs.

 

[Ashful]

I guess I really never paid much attention to that and actually didn't know. It makes sense with the cable driven tachometer. On all the new computerized stuff it would suprise me if it was programed one way or the other. Yeah and don't get me started on the t4 bs.

I was really dreading buying a Tier4, but now that I have it, I appreciate it. The old machine used to choke me out of the shed if I left it idling a few minutes while hooking up an implement, and I always came in reeking of diesel exhaust at the end of a day outside. The new machine exhaust smell like flowers and unicorn farts, by comparison.

Reminds me of every time I get stuck behind an old muscle car. I love 'em, but they do stink by comparison to what we have today!

 

[ericm979]

My Tier 4 Branson is so much better to be around than the Kubota I had. I can barely smell anything from it. It's been zero trouble. Even the '90s Kubota had an electric hour meter which measured key on time. Its cheaper to make that than the cable drive type.

 

[duramaxman05]

I was really dreading buying a Tier4, but now that I have it, I appreciate it. The old machine used to choke me out of the shed if I left it idling a few minutes while hooking up an implement, and I always came in reeking of diesel exhaust at the end of a day outside. The new machine exhaust smell like flowers and unicorn farts, by comparison.

Reminds me of every time I get stuck behind an old muscle car. I love 'em, but they do stink by comparison to what we have today!

That's the only thing I like about the t4 with the dpf. Now small t4 diesels that don't have the dpf, still stink. Our old mini excavator had a 4300hrs on the kubota engine and was t4. I was in some confined areas with it and it stunk me out. Our new komatsu mini excavator still stinks being t4

 

[Ashful]

Interesting. Never having bothered to read up on it, I always just assumed t4 meant it would have a dpf. Didn't know some did not.

 

[ericm979]

There's a bunch of levels in Tier 4 based on engine HP. At each level the emissions limits per hp are reduced. Which makes sense as it's easier to treat emissions on larger engines. I.e. keeping a DPF or DOC up to temp is hard on a small engine. There's a break at 25.5hp where below that the manufacturers can meet the limits with combustion chamber shape and injection timing. Above that they (usually) use a DOC+DPF or a DOC on its own. Above 75hp the limits are tighter and manufacturers have been using a DPF and DEF. The tech to meet the limits is not specified in the regs, it's up to the manufacturers to come up with the solution.