I run my old
BX2200 about 100 hrs. per year. With that I use OEM filters and SUDT2 trans fluid. Rotella T6 for the engine. Never have had an issue. 1357hrs on the BX. Cost difference in filters and trans fluid make OEM the better choice to make sure the right stuff is doing the job.
It seems like this thread has become mostly concerned with the cost of oils and filters so I'd like to propose a different way of looking at cost.
I suspect my credentials are roughly average for a mechanical group. Started as a heavy machine operator and then a mechanic, machinist, shopowner, and much later (at 50+) a degree in mechanical engineering. Incredibly though it seems, that last gig has now lasted over twenty years.
Oils and filters have changed a lot during that time, but then so have the ways that I look at them.
Back to price, I simply don't see any significant difference between any of the oil and filters on the market as regards price or availability. It's a narrow range, and they all seem to be somewhere in roughly the same small ballpark. We know we have to have both, and that we have to change them periodically. So it's lucky for us that both are so inexpensive. What small differences in price they do have grows even less significant when compared to the cost of the systems these things are protecting.
Engineers often run across roughly equal claims for roughly equal products and part of the job is making a specsmanship call. The client decides just where he wants to end up on a sliding scale of price versus quality and the engineer has a varying degree of voice in that decision.
But when it's something left to me and especially on my own equipment I like to start with the most expensive example and ask just what it is that makes that product more expensive.....and whatever it is, does it have any value to me?
That way I'm basically counting on competition to keep the price as low as it can be; I may be wrong, but that seems to be a reasonable assumption when all the competition is making something that is roughly similar. It's possible that the more expensive part might really be better, whereas that argument is sure a lot harder to make for the less expensive examples. Manufacturing anything is a pretty small world. In the world of manufacturing, it is common to continuously monitor competing products. When the product and process are so similar it really does cost more to make something better.
Again, compared to engines and hydraulic systems, oils and filters are so cheap to start with that if one really is better then that's the one we want. So I start by looking at the high end, not the low price.
And not wanting to be a fool, it's worth thinking about some of the other things that can raise price; things such as advertising, size of the manufacturing run, and where it is made. The last one contains not only labor and raw material costs, but such difficult things as shipping, import duties, and tariffs.
One of the previous posts was from a guy in Canada who traveled to the USA and found that Kubota oil and filter parts in the USA were less expensive so he bought his spares stateside. I wonder why that difference in price? That ought to be one we could figure out.
If Good Luck beats Good Planning....then here's to the Lady!
rScotty
