Engine oil and filter once a year?

[Mundy]

I'm in the "At least once per year" group. I do the tractor in the fall so it will have fresh clean oil for the hand full of cold starts to push snow during the winter. I may put 40 hours on the tractor per year.
Now if somthing happened that I did not use the tractor for the whole year I may not change it until I forsaw or began regular use again. But even though the oil technically had no or very few hours on it I would be planning a change very soon after I began to use the tractor again. If it had been several years I may start it to move it or warm it up but would change it before doing any work with it.
The mower I do filter once and oil twice a year. Oil once the middle of June and oil/filter once the end of August. I may put 50 hours on the oil fall and spring and have 75 to 80 hours between the summer changes. The recomended is 150 by the manufacturer and that why I do the filter only once but it makes me feel safer to have clean oil to finish out he year. The 15 minutes it takes to service and the few $ for the oil is worth it if I get more years out of the equipment. I have 2700 hours on it and does not use any oil.

Regards,
Mundy

 

[Ford850]

Interesting discussions on hours vs calenders with a twist of use thrown in for spice.

One point on "abuse" or "severe use". We mostly have a gut feel that abusive use and severe use are when we mow for 12 hours thru thick and nasty stuff in 105F heat. Actually, that isn't too bad on the engine. It's running at rated RPM's, has full oil flow and as long as the air filters and cooling coils are kept clean there is no problem. Tractors are made to be used that way for thousands of hours with no complaints.

Now, if you often run the tractor at 1/3 to 1/2 of rated engine speed and only run it for 15-20 minutes, most of us would think that was very gentle use. BUT, that is about the worse use you can give it. The engine never really gets hot enough to evaporate out water from the oil, cold starts allow excess fuel to wash down the cylinder walls, the oil will cake up and form huge globs of goo on the upper end, rocker arms, etc. Can get so bad it blocks the return of oil to the block. Nasty. Worse engine I ever tore down was one that the thermostat was removed from. It never got up to temp and everything in there was nasty.

Every situation is different and the people writing the manuals can't address them all. We own the tractors and we are all big boys and girls. If we don't want to "waste" $20 on an annual fluid change that's our call. It turns out that my tractors are used enough to justify annual changes, even if they are sometimes short of the book hours. No big deal to me. If a machine was only used a couple hours a year, I'd think hard about getting rid of it. Might be simpler than worrying about wasted oil and filters.


$0.02
jb

John bud,
Those are great examples. I'll admit I considered the uses as you described, incorrectly thinking light use was gentle use. The strange thing is that most of us think just the opposite for autos. We all know that highway miles are much better that short trip miles. Anyway... good points and thanks for the advice.

 

[jnyost]

Well ,my New Holland TN70A wants the oil and filter changed every 300 hrs. I run about 150 hrs a year, so I change my Rotella-T synthetic 5-40W and filter once a year in the late fall or early winter. What do you think?
Bob

Perfect. I do the same. Since my hours usage is less than the recommended interval I change mine in the spring before usage. That'll get rid of any condensation that happens over winter.

Jared