Tell me about Kubota Regen

[Aquabird]

So, I have a kubota MX5400.
What can you tell me about the Regen process?

I have around 20 hours on mine and last eve I was done doing some work back filling with the FEL and was backing into the pole barn and the lights started to flash on my dash.

I had read the book about it, but had retained nothing from reading it twice when I bought the tractor in Aug.
I asked the dealer that sold it to me to explain it to me and he said he did not know anything about it.
Since I did not have the book with me, I just pushed some of the buttons, but did not push the "inhibit" button. Nothing seemed to change.
My wife brought me the book. I saw that I needed to increase the RPM and did that. Since I did not want to stop the process, I did not go back to working with it.
Then, since it had not started to Regenerate, I decided to do the Parked mode of Regen. I followed the instructions and it finally started the process.

How often does your tractor Regen??

Did it do that at just 20 hrs?

I understand it is dependent upon how high you keep your RPMs when working with the tractor, correct?

I am trying to get more understanding of how often is normal and how long the actual process takes. I did not look at the clock to see when mine actually started to regen.
Tell me what you guys know!

 

[sea2summit]

So hard to say, the time between regen and the duration of the actual regen have a lot of variables. I've got about 450 on my MX5800 and I only remember a few regens, nothing really changes other than sometimes I don't want to be running at the RPMs it wants and it smells different but that's about it.

 

[stephenh]

I've had my 4701 about a year now. When I purchased it, new from dealer, I was told nothing about the regen. This is my third Kubota, the others didn't have regen so it was big news to me when after 30 hr. it needed it. I followed the owner's manual, no luck. I called the service dept at the dealer, manager said he knew nothing about it. Emailed Kubota [which I've done in the past with good results] and they replied, no idea, talk to your dealer's service dept.

I finally got on YouTube and found several videos about it and how to run the regen.

I also then went back and tried to work through the instuctions in the manual again, having one experience under my belt. One part of instructions says, engage the parked regen button. This button does nothing, does not light up, etc. I don't know whether it is inoperative or what. Again, a call to the dealer got me zero. So, I don't use the parked regen. To get warranty work, I have to pay transport both ways to the dealer, 25 miles, and it costs $432. I already did this once the first week after delivery, when my 3-point hitch would not raise or lower. Had to pay to transport, wait several days, so forth. Therefore I am reluctant to take it back again.

My regen is needed about every 40-50 hr. I do live on rocky, steep terrain and am not able to continuously run the engine at higher RPM. It is often at 1500 or a bit below. I have read now that I need to run it at 2000 or above as much as I can. To prevent frequent need for regen, I mean. So I live with the 40-hr thing.

 

[Fallon]

Between 10 & 40 hours.

The DPF is a big ceramic filter. It collects all the black soot that usually comes out of a diesel. Every so often it plugs up. To clean or regen the filter the machine dumps fuel into the DPF to burn off the accumulated soot.

If you run your machine hard, it heats up the exhaust & DPF so it somewhat does a regen on its own. Running the machine at low RPMs or lugging the engine (anything that use to produce a lot of black smoke) loads up the DPF faster.

I rarely notice my regens these days, except by the smell. I just keep working & let it do its thing. Usually while mowing at full throttle.

If your dealer is clueless about emissions systems that have been required on tractors for the past 8 odd years, you have an incompetent or negligent dealer. I'd look for a new dealer.

 

[Aquabird]

Ok, I figured there were variables. I guess one would be how many RPM you run at.

40-50 hrs does not sound bad compared to the 20hrs I have.
Strange how the dealers know nothing about it. I think in order to push the "P" park button, you have to take it out of gear or put it in neutral, you also have to set the parking brake and lower the implements and put it at an idle. Once I did that, it took off.

My dealer is about 6 miles from my house and I do have an 18' trailer too. I just hate running it at high RPM when it does not need it to do a certain job. It gets too loud.

I had a trench dug and the guy shows up with a 23hp John Deere. The front wheels were very small. He dug the trench pretty good with it. But when it came to filling it back in, his wheels were just spinning. I got my tractor out and filled it in quickly. It was kind of embarrassing that I had to hire it done and then he brings a very small tractor to do it.
I was back filling around the new house right before the Regen light came on. I did not expect it at 20 hrs.

 

[Aquabird]

Fallon, thanks for the info, It was just my salesman who did not know, but even at that, I think he should know.
So, you are saying, that I would have to do nothing, except keep working and it would have done it on its own, no buttons to push or anything??

I do not notice any black smoke when operating, ever.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

I have an MX5400. I think the regen frequency depends on what sort of RPMs you're running. If I'm brush hogging at 2500 RPMs regens are further between than if I'm putting around at 1500rpms. No big deal in any case, just crank up those rpms while it's doing the regen and do what you normally do.

 

[Hilbilly]

Yes, but if you are running at low rpm's the DPF indicator light will flash indicating to increase the rpm's. Mine typically needs around 1800 rpm or more to get the light to stop flashing. I've got 310 hrs on mine since last summer and the regen's have been anywhere from about 25 hrs to 50 hrs. I used to be concerned about it because of some of the horror stories I have read about the regen cycles causing problems but I have not had any issues and now ignore it, other than making sure it is running high enough to engage the regen cycle. I usually keep the dash display on soot load. that way I know when it's getting close to needing a regen and I can try to time regens so they start when I will be using the tractor for a while. It takes about 20 minutes to complete one on my tractor. I have only done a parked regen once and didn't like leaving the tractor running just so it could do a regen. I prefer to be using it for something useful, not sitting there wasting fuel.

I've found that running the tractor at higher rpm's when you don't really need to, does not have a significant effect on the time between regens. What does affect it, is how hard the tractor is working. I've watched my soot level drop when I was working the tractor hard.

Basically, just keep doing what your doing and ignore the regen thing, other than making sure you have the rpm's up when the cycle needs to start.

Edit, this is in response Aquabird's question about just running the tractor without having to push buttons. Another post got in before I posted.

 

[Citydude]

I agree with Fallon as far as the dealer, even though it's a salesman, not knowing about Regen's. Seems very odd to me. Anyway, I have an L4060 HSTC and per my dealer's request, I run at 2000 RPM all the time with the exception of tight quarters or implement changes. All my Regen's average around 40 hours between them and so far have just kept working while it was in Regen.

 

[deserteagle71]

I have 430 hours on my M7060HDC12 now. Like Fallon, I rarely notice the regens when they happen - every once in a while I'll see the light on in the dash, then the next time I glance down it is off. Seems to take only about 10 - 15 minutes. Total non-issue as far as I am concerned.

I did end up doing a Parked regeneration one time, and that was because I noticed the light in the dash was on as I was backing the tractor into the barn to park it. So I just turned up the throttle to ~2000 rpm, left the tractor to do a few other chores, and came back about 15 minutes later to shut the engine off because the regen was done.

I suppose all the Kubota engine models are different to some extent but I have never run my engine over 2000 rpm for any length of time. My tractor is equipped with EPTO; 540 PTO rpm equals just over 1800 engine rpm so that's what I run and I've had no problems with excessive regenerations. The main thing is - don't let the engine spend a lot of time just idling.