eagle107
Gold Member
I constantly read on the forum and other forums that people are changing their hydraulic oil on new tractors at 100 hours, 50 hours or even less and it seem to be for any type of tractor make: JD, Case, NH, Kubota, Kioti and etc. Then many people state that after the hydraulic oil change, the oil looks clean. My question is why are people doing this? It just seems like a waste of oil, especially seeing how expensive hydraulic oil is these days. I am thinking that the oil should be able to be used for a lot more hours and the hydraulic oil filters should be able to trap most of the contaminants in the oil; thus the reason for the hydro filter(s).
Now I am no experts in oils, but my neighbor is a automotive store owner and states that hydraulic oil is more of a cleaning fluid and the oil can be used at longer intervals than people think. He even goes as far as saying that you can wash you hands with the oil. I am not sure about that, but the hydraulic oil does seem to stay pretty clean.
Also, as long as I can remember growing up, we hardly ever changed the hydraulic oil in our Ford 1710, 1725 and NH TC33D tractors. When we got our first HST NH TC34DA tractor, the only thing we needed to change at the first 50 hours was the HST filter. That is the same thing we did for our NH Boomer 3040 HST tractor. All these tractors we have owned, we never had any major transmission issues. In addition, my other neighbor (who is not very maintenance conscious) did not change his hydraulic oil in his NH TC40D HST tractor till last year; he has been running that tractor for 9 years and never had a transmission issue with his tractor. My uncle is just about to change his oil in his JD 3520 after 450 hours and he has been using his tractor for seven years with out any issues. I have a new JD 4520 and will not change the transmission oil in it until it is 6 years old or till it has 400 hours on it. The new JD X748 says to change the hydraulic oil at 50 hours, but I will likely only replace the hydraulic filter and leave the oil alone, seeing the oil has been hardly using yet and just seems to be a waste to change it. Even my NH and JD dealers tell me that is what they recommend to do and they do the same thing with their own tractors; they never seem to have an issue either. I am I missing something here, I am I too old school or are people too paranoid about these hydraulic oil change intervals?
Now I am no experts in oils, but my neighbor is a automotive store owner and states that hydraulic oil is more of a cleaning fluid and the oil can be used at longer intervals than people think. He even goes as far as saying that you can wash you hands with the oil. I am not sure about that, but the hydraulic oil does seem to stay pretty clean.
Also, as long as I can remember growing up, we hardly ever changed the hydraulic oil in our Ford 1710, 1725 and NH TC33D tractors. When we got our first HST NH TC34DA tractor, the only thing we needed to change at the first 50 hours was the HST filter. That is the same thing we did for our NH Boomer 3040 HST tractor. All these tractors we have owned, we never had any major transmission issues. In addition, my other neighbor (who is not very maintenance conscious) did not change his hydraulic oil in his NH TC40D HST tractor till last year; he has been running that tractor for 9 years and never had a transmission issue with his tractor. My uncle is just about to change his oil in his JD 3520 after 450 hours and he has been using his tractor for seven years with out any issues. I have a new JD 4520 and will not change the transmission oil in it until it is 6 years old or till it has 400 hours on it. The new JD X748 says to change the hydraulic oil at 50 hours, but I will likely only replace the hydraulic filter and leave the oil alone, seeing the oil has been hardly using yet and just seems to be a waste to change it. Even my NH and JD dealers tell me that is what they recommend to do and they do the same thing with their own tractors; they never seem to have an issue either. I am I missing something here, I am I too old school or are people too paranoid about these hydraulic oil change intervals?