Would like to do a comlete drain and refill on this ’91 Kobelco K909. 55 gal Dealer oil $1,500. Rural King $500. My go to place to get this figured out is the Project Farm channel on YouTube, he tests everything. Nothing on hydraulic oil though. Any danger putting cheapo oil in there? I doubt there’s any difference they way I’m gonna run this, mostly light land clearing and when the weather is good. Thoughts? And anyone got a better idea about getting the cheapest?
Caterpillar. Right now, Cat has a sale on oil. I got a 55 of TDTO 50 for less than $800 with tax. If your machine calls for AW 46, the Caterpillar equivalent would be HYDO 10.
IMO high quality lubricants & filters are the cheapest insurance policy you can buy for any machine. Just ask yourself what it would cost if something expensive in the hydraulic system grenaded as a result of using cheap oil. You could easily be looking at upwards of $10k. Strictly speaking that is correct - but if the dealer has an offer on TDTO SAE10W you could also use that. A hydraulic system does not require the additives for friction materials contained in the TDTO oil but neither will they do said system any harm.
You get what you pay for.
IMHO the dictum should be to never buy any product where the words “farm”, “tractor”, or “universal” appear in the name of the product or of the company selling it…….
On cheap hydraulic fluids see if it says only for obsolete systems older than 1986 ot something to that sort. I use cheap hydraulic fluid all the time but in simple gear pumps that the technology hasn't changed since the 50's
I agree that would probably be fine for a ~2000psi gear pump but what about a 5000psi piston pump on an excavator.? That's what the OP has. Personally I wouldn't like to risk it.
Yeah to be clear I was giving an example of when to use cheap fluid, and lots of that cheap fluid has that warning on it.
That cheap stuff is excellent for my mower and log splitter.
See what specs. the oil actually meets and who makes it. Some oils will say recommended for or something along those lines. Look for oil that says meets these specs. Cat TO4, JD20C, JD20D and Allison C4 are a few I can think of.
Great advice. I know manufacturers private label the same exact stuff under different labels for different price points. Checking the specs is the way to go...
Aw46 would be 20wt. Not super familiar with CAT branded oil. We sell TorqForce and PowerDrive for TO4 spec oil. Mostly 0w20, 10, and 5w30. Occasionally 30 for finals. 50 is super rare... like sell maybe 4 drums a year, vs 25k+ gallons of the other 3. Granted it's focused on winter temps of -60* more than the 2 weeks of summer that it's maybe 60-70*. Was -5* yesterday. Currently 12* and snowing. That drum price in first post seems really high. We sell Rando HDZ or p66 Powerflow NZ HE for about that... and there's easily $400 added in shipping. Not even sure on cheap oils. P66 Megaflow is like $700ish a drum and that's the lowest quality we sell. (Not a bad oil either, just low on VIIs. The other two are considered multigrade, ** is straight grade)
Think I’ll call Warren Oil and see what they say. Mag1, Traveller etc. AW 46 all produced by Warren and sold for about $500/55 gal. drum. Listen, I’ll gladly pay my dealer $1,500 for 55 gallons if it’s truly required. But I’m not going to buy the same crap made by the same manufacturer just under a different label for 3x the price if I can help it. Hydraulic is a little different because of the lack of comparative standards and proprietary additive packages, but there should be a way to figure this out.
May dad uses havoline oil in his truck 10w30. It is the basic oil sold at Walmart He has 750k miles on the motor. I use the same in my tak and case skid steer oil systems. On my 953 gear pump and dump truck gear pump they get pretty much any oil I can get my hands on. The hydrostatic drive gets the cat spec or power drive
When you get Warren on the phone, ask them how their 10.8 million settlement is going. The settlement for selling off-spec hydraulic oil.
#micdrop
That Friday meme of Damm fits
Good info…but I’d venture a guess and say Warren now has the tightest specs on the market.
Makes sense. One could certainly think that, but they have an on-going history of litigation for these shenanigans.
Appreciate the info. I looked into the 303 debacle a little bit. Would be an easy call if it weren’t for a $1,000 difference. If I can’t get any better info I will probably bite the bullet and buy from the dealer. Thanks!
FYI this is from the PPC lubricants website: "The Petroleum Quality Institute of America conducted a study of 303 fluids purchased from store shelves at random in 2017/2018 in order to determine their performance levels. Their results were shocking to say the least: 91% failed to meet the J20-C and J20-A specifications 74% failed to meet any JDM specifications 60% chance of lower anti-wear protection than J20-C 73% chance will offer less detergency than J20-C" Sounds like more than a Warren problem. Wonder who else was caught?
If a guy is trying to save a buck, on a personal project, occasionally, expired product is available that the distributor can’t normally sell. We’d like to think lube jobbers are well oiled machines (ha ha) with the most efficient inventory control systems. FIFO. That’s not the case. The competency crisis is alive and well and “we” end up with expired lube that gets sold out the back door. Sometimes, it’s odd ball stuff. Other times, it’s a few drums that get forgotten in a corner because it will take three hours to move product just to get one pallet. It’s worth getting to know your local sales rep.
Yeah. I could name some other sketchy blenders, but I shouldn’t.
I think you should be able to find a suitable oil for less than $1500 a barrel. Look at name brand oils and talk to bulk oil suppliers. I'm sure the Cat oil on sale would be fine and I'm sure there are others too. You basically looked at 2 barrels of oil. OEM at $1500 and tractor supply for $500. Should be able to find something in the $700-$800 range and maybe less on sale. I don't think your machine is an exotic one hybrid off that requires the most advanced oil on the planet.
You don't have to get the dealers oil, any of the major oil companies make a good quality hydraulic oil that will be around $20 gallon. Have you tested the oil in there? before spending $500 on rural king oil, see how the oil that's in there is doing. Some of the cheaper hydraulic oils are recycled, might as well recycle your own and save the money in that case.
I guess we could take a deep breath and think rationally about this, maybe pull a sample and kick the tires. But, I want to sell some oil. Knowwhatimsayin ?
Funny thinking back, pre-clown world, when the thought spending $1,500 bucks for a filter cart, was a luxury only dealers had. Today, even if I was a one-man, part-time contractor with a mini-ex, or a farmer with a skid steer for mucking out the cow barn, I would have a filter cart for maintaining my $25 per gallon hydraulic oil.
Amen to that. The OEMs don't blend oils for their dealers to sell, they have an oil company do it for them. In the past Mobil produced all Cat-branded lubricants, I am not sure if that is still the case. There is a middle ground price-wise between buying at "Joe Blow's Gas & Groceries" (or your local equivalent) and the OEM dealer, and the above is it. Strangely-enough buying major oil company branded oils ought to be pretty attractive price-wise. Whodathunkit.....
Info from?
In my short experience any oil is better than no oil. And cheap oil is better than oil with water and dirt in it. And if the pump costs less than a drum of oil use the cheap oil and don't worry about it. A new pump or rebuild in your excavator is a high dollar item get the correct fluid. But power drive 10w I bet would do it and it's about 850 a drum.
I've made a couple for maybe $300 in parts
Let's hear how did you make it?
Don't most excavators require zinc-free hydraulic oil? Pretty sure Deere/Hitachi require it but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Best to go with the manufacturer's recommendations. I also recommend filtering the new oil before putting it in the machine. New oil isn't exactly clean out of the bucket and will probably fail an ISO particle count check.
Only Deere/hitachi require ashless oil AFAIK. Certainly Cat don't. No idea regarding Kobelco.
I was pretty certain on Deere/Hitachi but I haven't worked on one of those in years. Never worked much on any other brand.
Newer Hitachi recommend it but zinc oil can be used too.
Couple filter housings and plug in pump. Probably an M18 pump would work or a 12v pump. Maybe not as good as a real cart, but I wasn't buying a $2500 setup.
That's assuming the cheap oil is clean, and it is not very clean. There are other ways to remove water and dirt besides flushing with new oil. It's one thing if you're talking about a skid steer or mini that needs one bucket, but once you talk about barrels, and multiple changes to get most of the old oil out, then repeated inline filtering or drying starts making sense.
Well…I think I solved this one. Local oil distributor (actually a $2B company) will sell me the equivalent Shell product for less than $800/bbl. The dealer oil was Case at $1,200. Thanks for all the answers! I’m gonna have lots questions.