Oil & Fuel Diesel Gal/Hr

W5FL · May 2, 2000

Does anyone keep up with their diesel consumption? Is there much variation?

My previous tractor was a Massey 245 with 39 pto hp. It averaged about 1 gallon per hour at PTO speed and had a 9 gallon tank.

My new tractor is a Kubota M6800SD with 62 pto hp. It also averages about 1 gallon per hour at PTO speed and has a 17 gallon tank.

How much variation is there in the range of B, L, and M Kubota tractors (or similar in other brands)?

Please post PTO HP to coorelate those than run all day on a thimble full of diesel. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird · May 2, 2000

Wen, I keep exact records of fuel bought, but buy my diesel in a 55 gallon barrel, so I just now had to go look in the barrel and estimate how much is left, and the best I can calculate my B2710 (20 PTO HP) is using .6629 gal/hr. (I'd say that's accurate at least to within one-tenth of a gallon per hour.) That's with 134.5 hours on the meter.

Bird

Bird · May 2, 2000

Ooops, Wen, I forgot to say the B2710 has a 6.9 gallon tank.

Bird

Alan L. · May 2, 2000

I can't provide precise figures as Bird did, but that seems to be about what my B2710 is doing. It has 120 hours seems to run forever on a tank of diesel.

MChalkley · May 2, 2000

I keep exact records of when and how much fuel I put in my tractor, but I'll have to get the book tomorrow and bring it in to give you any details. I do remember that my L4310HST burns between half and two thirds the fuel that my L3600GST used to.

Mark

PaulB · May 3, 2000

With all this talk about 50 and 60 pto horsepower tractors I feel like I am from the Land of the Little People, but at the risk of humiliation I will add what I know about my mighty B1700 (13 pto horsepower). I have not measured to the ounce, but I get 10 hours on 5 gallons of diesel, which includes considerable warmup time in the winter.

Mryan · May 3, 2000

I'm with PaulB.....My B2100 gets a little better than 10hrs/5gal. I only have 45hrs on the meter to date. Does fuel economy get better after the initial "break in" time?? Not that I'm complaining...it does seem to run forever on a tank.

Mike.

W5FL · May 4, 2000

Mark must have found out that his diesel burned too much fuel to post. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Guess no one with a John Deere reads the Kubota board or we might find one that runs all day on that thimble full.

I actually got the idea for this thread reading the Nebraska Tractor Tests and realizing how much diesel some tractors actually use when under moderate load. Mowing is a pretty light load for most tractors, but so far we have only gotten a range of 2:1 when pto hp varied 12:62 or so. The story must be a little more complex.

Doesn't anyone read the Kubota board that knows what their diesel mileage is?

MChalkley · May 4, 2000

Wen - Sorry. I've been too busy to look, and not with tractor work, either, unfortunately. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

It's on the list...

Mark

PaulB · May 4, 2000

Wen - If these preliminary data prove to be correct ( I will measure mine more closely to see how close my seat of the pants guess was), it is amazing to me that your Mwhatever uses only twice as much fuel as my little 1700. On a horsepower per calorie of fuel burned basis, yours must be way, way more efficient than mine. I have never had the opportunity to run mine under ideal conditions (long hours of continuous work at one set rpm), rather I do my work in spits and spurts, so maybe this makes a difference. If I do some long hours of bushhogging this summer I will carefully measure my fuel usage.