1st service - Fluid recommendations

[Michael Knight]

Ok, I bought 1 gal of UDT from the kubota store and almost had to get a small business loan for that. I can only imagine what 11.5 gallons will cost.

Who has a recommendation for something that is good quality, but not out of control expensive? I have seen the fluids at wal marts, and have had good luck with their car oils in the past, but I couldnt figure out if you get the R&O type or the plain type. I dont mind paying a little more for better quality because they hydrolic fluid stays in for so long, but unless it is necessary, I dont want to pay the 250 bucks or so that it would cost me to by the UDT from the dealer. If there is a place to order UDT cheaper that would help too.

I was planning on using Rotella 15W 40 for the engine and gear oil for the front end.

I am doing all this on a MX5000 4x4 that I bought Aug 06. I have 44 hrs on it, so I need to go ahead and do this soon. I'm using it for creating fence lines, bush hogging, gardning and general small farm use, but I am in south Mississippi and it gets HOT down here.

 

[N80]

Kubota sells SUDT and UDT. SUDT is ridiculously expensive but out of ignorance and fear I went ahead and used it for my first change for my L4400. It is warm here also and my L4400 is not HST so the benefits of SUDT over UDT are probably marginal. But check the price of plain Kubota UDT, it did not seem all that expensive to me.

 

[LBrown59]

Ok, I bought 1 gal of UDT from the kubota store and almost had to get a small business loan for that. I can only imagine what 11.5 gallons will cost.

Who has a recommendation for something that is good quality, but not out of control expensive? I have seen the fluids at wal marts, and have had good luck with their car oils in the past, but I couldnt figure out if you get the R&O type or the plain type. I dont mind paying a little more for better quality because they hydrolic fluid stays in for so long, but unless it is necessary, I dont want to pay the 250 bucks or so that it would cost me to by the UDT from the dealer. If there is a place to order UDT cheaper that would help too.

I was planning on using Rotella 15W 40 for the engine and gear oil for the front end.

I am doing all this on a MX5000 4x4 that I bought Aug 06. I have 44 hrs on it, so I need to go ahead and do this soon. I'm using it for creating fence lines, bush hogging, gardning and general small farm use, but I am in south Mississippi and it gets HOT down here.

I just use S-UDT.

 

[SteveA]

Here in New England I use SUDT. Since I have somewhere in the range of 20K invested in my tractor and the toys that go with it, I use the factory recommended stuff. A few hundred more won't kill me and gives me a little peace of mind. I do use Wix motor oil, air, and fuel filters though. Kubota OEM filters for the hydraulics.

 

[jruss]

I also live in the south and use Rotella 15w40 for the engine and SUDT in the Hydro. I think that using the recommended oil in the hydro is just a good precaution for long life.

 

[droelle]

search this forum using "chevron" as the keyword and you will find lots of info relative to fluids including some feedback on the walmart stuff i use chevron and am quite satisfied

gluck


dave

 

[RobJ]

I live in the south and have a gear tractor. I use the basic hydraulic tractor oil I get at walmart or the local COOP. Ford, GM all recommend using OEM parts in their cars and trucks. But probably very few do...probably because of the cost AND someone figured out who makes them.

Last I checked Kubota doesn't own an oil company but does like selling OEM parts at high prices. They spec the oil and someone else bottles it up. I think it's funny when I go to the Honda place to buy parts for my ATV and see Honda motor oil.

It's interesting how some folks put 60 hours a year on a $15,000 tractor doing light duty work and spend all the extra money on OEM parts. But buy discount parts for a $45,000 truck that they put 10, 20, 30 thousand miles on it a year.

I know tractor is the baby! Maybe the stuff has gold dust in it and is better, I don't think there is much difference, especially in a gear tractor. Worst case is go with UDT, it's cheaper and is interchangable with SUDT??

Kubota UDT/SuperUDT Specifications

 

[teg]

I wonder if Michael Knight meant to say SUDT in stead of UDT ? I used the SUDT for the first changed in the hope to make it not whine too much. It did not make any difference but then again I don't know what the dealer used (I assumed the cheaper stuff). Next change, I'll go back to UDT.

PS. Honda "Genuine"... love it!

 

[canoetrpr]

Interesting discussion.

I ended up going with Premium UDT - which is all they sell in Canada.

I talked to a dealer up here who sells a lot of Kubota equipment and one of the service managers told me that after warranty has expired they use generic hydraulic fluid on tractors to save on the cost of the change for their customers. He claims that they have never seen a failure related to it or any performance loss.

Another poster here pointed out that the his jerky 3PH on the L3400 became silky smooth once he swiched to cheap hydraulic oil from the UDT stuff!

I'll bet there are thousands of Kubotas with thousands of hours in the hands of their second and third owners who have never so much as stepped into a Kubota dealership, let alone bought UDT or SUDT there. They are most likely all running regular hydraulic oil.

Will I stick to Premium UDT for my baby... probably. It works, is what is speced and I don't put enough use on the tractor to worry about the extra couple hundred every two years. I doubt that it would self distruct if I put in regular hydraulic oil that matched UDT specs.

BTW. the dealer I bought service parts from sold (genuine!) Kubota Canada branded 15W-40 oil also.

 

[Michael Knight]

I wonder if Michael Knight meant to say SUDT in stead of UDT ? I used the SUDT for the first changed in the hope to make it not whine too much. It did not make any difference but then again I don't know what the dealer used (I assumed the cheaper stuff). Next change, I'll go back to UDT.

PS. Honda "Genuine"... love it!

Thats a good question, I think it was the regular UDT, but I didnt realize they sold two kinds. Whatever it was it was very expensive for 1 gallon of fluid.

I have a manual shift tractor, so I am thinking of trying some of the chevron fluid or else the wal mart brand. If I was to do that, would the R&O type or regular hydraulic fluid be the correct type for my tractor? I dont know what R&O stands for but I noticed they had two kinds at wal marts and I didnt know which kind I should get if I got one from there.

Despite what many may have said one way or the other, I have had fine luck with the walmart brand oils in cars. I ran it for a while in my truck before I tore it down to make it into a stroker motor and the cross hatches were still on the wall at 150K and it looked great in there. Even the guy at the machine shop was impressed with how good it looked in there. I think having clean oil is more important then what brand it is.