Kubota does "not recognize synthetic oil"

[Bird]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

Wen, I'm sorry, but I let the manuals go with the B7100 last year. I believe there were 6 other brands of hydraulic oil listed. I used Shell Donax TD, which was one of them, along with one of the Mobil products, and I just don't remember what the others were.

Bird

 

[BobT]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

Hi,

Goods news that you have related. Thank you. Kubota Corp. always does, in the end, provide good feedback and support for their owners.

However, it sort of amazes me that a person from Kubota doesn't "want their name made public"? Most big corps have this attitutde, but for the life of me I cannot see the "good and obvious reasons." On their own website, they don't even have ONE e-maill link back to anyone at their company!

Also, I don't think it is quite accurate to call us "our little group." We represent the largest group of Kubota owners in the world, and have purchased (happily) and made purchase decisions for hundreds of millions of dollars of their tractors just since this board opened up. Yet, to date, not one person from Kubota Corp itself has ever posted even one message here. Talk about paranoid? Or what? This site is the best "free" research and customer attittudes survey source they could ever ask for. They couldn't possible buy the insights that are available here. Man, if Kubota doesn't come here to learn what their customers think, they are missing out big time.

BobT.

A Indiana Boy

 

[Bird]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

BobT, I suppose I can at least partially understand the Kubota Corp employees not getting involved in a discussion forum like this (not that I really agree with them) if they're busy and want customers to go through the local dealers, but if they're not at least reading the forum regularly, I sure agree that they are missing what should be a very valuable, yet free, source of information.

And of the course, the same holds true for the manufacturers of the other colors, too.

Bird

 

[gordon]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

Here are the Transmission oil listings: of course UDT and super UDT Got this out of my L3750 Manual, Listings are as follows:

Atlantic Richfield (arco)--Arco Tractor Fluid
Chevron-----------------Tractor Hydraulic Fluid
Exxon-------------------Torque Fluid 56
Penzoil------------------Hydra-Trans and Wet BR.
Phillips------------------H.T. Fluid
Shell--------------------Donax TD,TT,TM
Texaco------------------T.D.H. Oil
Union-------------------Hydraulic/Tractor Fluid
Gulf---------------------Universal Fluid 425,350
Mobil--------------------Mobil Fluid 423,350

It is important that a mulit-grade transmission fluid be used in this system.
It aslo states: in the front wheel drive unit SAE 80 or 90 weight gear oil nothing about UDT or Super UDT--Times are a changin/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
And you guys thought I was good for nothing--huh--/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[MChalkley]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

Well, the reasons I can think of off hand mostly amount to this:

1) He had to rely on my ability to quote him accurately, which is not a situation most people would want to be in, given the audience that would see in name associated with the quote.

2) The pecking order in large companies is sacrosanct. There's no telling how many feathers he'd ruffle if he allowed that without getting permission from everybody and his brother, including Japan, probably. There was not time for that, nor would it have been worth the effort if there had been.

3) In order for there to be an official statement, a committee would have to be formed to determine what the statement should say, how many languages it should be translated into, and whether the English-speaking world could see it before the Japanese-speaking world.

4) Probably most importantly, he doesn't want his name and number posted for the world to see so every one of us can call him every time we hear a rattle to see if it's covered by warranty.

If anyone else wants his name and number, email me. At my discretion, depending on what I know of you from your posts here, I'll probably email you his name and number. He didn't tell me not to give it to anyone, just not to post it on the Internet. And he didn't bring it up - I asked him. Alternatively, I suppose you could call Kubota HQ and ask to speak to the head of the warranty department, right?

An interesting sidebar to the story is that late yesterday I received a call from the department manager of one the guys in GA I spoke to earlier in the morning. He told me Kubota "could care less whether it's synthetic or made from dinosaur dung as long as it's API rated for the right classification and viscosity." He also said, however, that they were sick and tired of not having an official policy to quote from HQ, and that he had requested one. I didn't tell him that the guy he'd requested it from had also told me of the request earlier in the day. At any rate, all the pieces fit together as they should, it seems.

Mark

 

[MChalkley]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

BobT, your comments about there not being any official manufacturer representation on this board are partly why I made the comments I did about the stupidity of most large corporations. Talking about a gold mine of missed opportunity!

As I said earlier, they could spend a very small fraction of what they do in advertising and R&D on a consumer advisory board that would give them far better information and help them produce a far better product. But it's not the corporate way. In general, they want the consumer to match their work to the equipment, not design the equipment to do the work. Backwards and dumb, but the corporate way, nonetheless. It always amazes me that most manufacturers gripe about lack of consumer feedback, but they only ask questions that the consumer doesn't care about answering and is smart enough to know aren't important in the first place. They don't usually ask how could the product be designed better or what additional features should it have or how well the manual is written, but "Was the salesman neatly dressed and polite?" Then they grouse about not receiving adequate response from the consumer. They can't fool the consumer into thinking they care what we think with stupid questions like that. But, therein lies perhaps the root of the problem: Most companies think (or maybe hope) their customers are stupid. I think that's what galls me most. And I'm not talking about any company in particular, just large companies in general.

Mark

 

[Bird]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

BobT, I do believe that Gordon's list here, of hydraulic oils, is the same one that was in the 1995 B7100 manual. So you can thank Gordon instead of me./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[gordon]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

In the R/V industry at rallies where there are alot of buses, moterhomes, and travel trailers of the same brand gathered together in one campground they have what is called round tables.
This consists of the manufacturer of a given unit and the customers gathered together at one table talking about current problems their having with the unit and things they would like to see added or changed in future models.
Some manufacturers really use this free feedback to their advantage, but others refuse to even have these great discussions with their customers.
It shows, the companies with the highest customer satisfaction levels are the ones that have these roundtables.
Who knows better than the people that use them?--Common sense isn't it.--For some it is and for others it's not.

 

[MChalkley]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

There ya go. Proof positive that intelligence works!

Mark

 

[PaulB]

Re: Kubota does \"not recognize synthetic oil\"

Lets start an informal list. If Kubota had a representative follow this board for the last year, what would the company have learned? I'll start :
- nearly every B series tractor is delivered from the factory with an overly stiff throttle, and it is an easy fix once you know how to do it, but damn near impossible if you don't know. I bet 10 percent of owners know (from discussion with other ownewrs, dealers don't know the answer), so 90 percent have throttles which are difficult and maddening to use. Problem could be avoided if the resistance nut was set properly at the factory.
- every Kubota owner in the world is confused about what to put in the front transaxle. what is the answer?
- We all want to know what Super UDT is, and what the specs are
- the front lights on at least the B series suck, every owner knows that, every owner would pay more $ to get good lights from the factory. Why don't they just fix it so we can stop complaining?
- On the whole, Kubota owners are fiercely loyal to their
brand, but we would like to feel that we are part of a team, not an outsider. It is our bucks that run the show afterall.
- We WANT AND WOULD BUY an HST model like the L35 (or bigger).This could be a huge seller for Kubota.
- We need an official Kubota policy on the Grey issue. Will Kubota support Grey owners or not. How about safety issues like ROPS for grey models. Does Kubota feel that just because somebody owns a grey Kubota, they should die in a rollover?
These are just a few issues which come to mind, and have been discussed here and, to my knowledge, nowhere else. Kubota coould only benefit from knowing about these issues, and I am sure many others that I can't think of right now.