Kubota Transmission Filter & Fluid Change

[Orange Man Good]

Hey guys, I am new to the forum and wanted to say hello as well as ask you for your opinion. I was reading through the operator's manual for the MX Series tractors and noticed that Kubota is calling for the transmission filter and fluid to be changed at 50 hours as well as every 200 hours thereafter. Are any of you out there changing it this much?

 

[85Hokie]

Orange - glad to have you, great folks you'll find here.

With a machine that cost that much - I would follow the ol book! And I would use NOTHING but the S-UDT2 and Kubota filters! I know that may be $$$ to do - but the thought of having to fix something in the hydraulic system would end up costing dollars over pennies!

 

[Orange Man Good]

Thanks 85, I appreciate the warm welcome

 

[Creature Meadow]

Welcome to OOT from NC.

I have an L4600 smaller cousin to yours.

I do stick with the recommended schedule except for motor oil changes. I change this every 2 years regardless of hours.

I change my air filter yearly, friend told me if it can't breath it will die! I do remove the outer filter after using it in dusty conditions and blow it out.

The hydro oil change cost me just shy of $300 for the SUDT2 and Kubota filter. I also do the front end at the same time using the SUDT2.

I figure the cost for maintenance especially if done by me is small compared to major repairs or worse case replacement.

Best of luck.
Jay

 

[swpflipper]

Yup. I just did my 50 he on my MX5400
I will stick with the recommended service intervals.
I use kubota fluids and filters for hydraulic system.

 

[Orange Man Good]

Thanks for the replies and opinions that have been offered up.

Can any of you guys explain to me why the service intervals are so short? I know with John Deere they don't require the trans fluid to be changed until 1200 hours or 3 years.

 

[85Hokie]

Not sure - but I bet it is something like better to be on the safe side rather than ....

here is "general maintenance chart from Kubota - in this case it shows 300 hours after first 50

https://www.kubotausa.com/service-support/maintenance-schedules/check-points-maintenance-schedule

 

[Creature Meadow]

My L4600 shows 400 for hydro oil it is a gear drive, otherwise it is 200 hours if it were hydrostatic.

Not familiar with the MX but if gear drive seems it would be like mine, 400.

 

[Orange Man Good]

Ok so I am a little confused here and maybe you guys can help clear it up. If you look at the maintenance schedule that I uploaded for the MX series, Kubota is showing that the transmission oil should be changed every 400 hours. However, they are also showing that the transmission oil filter should be changed every 200 hours. So are they saying to change the filter independent of the fluid?

 

[lugbolt]

for the last 2 years of my employment at the kubota dealer, there were several instances where the warranty department at Kubota had asked for service records, while submitting a warranty claim. Also, they've gotten anal about fluid analyses as well. If no record,s no pay, meaning customer gets to eat the cost of the repair. Or if fluid analyses come back with contaminated fluids they can and have denied warranty coverage; as the root cause of failure was not due to manufacturing defects; rather something that was out of their control. Just putting it out there for what its' worth (maybe nothing?)

 

[D2Cat]

Orange Man, welcome to the forum. The 50 hour fluid change seems early, but the purpose is to clear out any "casting crumbs" from manufacturing that may be hanging around! Just cleaning everything up for a nice long life.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

Ok so I am a little confused here and maybe you guys can help clear it up. If you look at the maintenance schedule that I uploaded for the MX series, Kubota is showing that the transmission oil should be changed every 400 hours. However, they are also showing that the transmission oil filter should be changed every 200 hours. So are they saying to change the filter independent of the fluid?

I read 200 hr for the hydrostatic HST filter (if you have HST) and 400 hr for the hydraulic filter and fluid.

 

[random]

If no record,s no pay, meaning customer gets to eat the cost of the repair.

So if you do your own regular service?

 

[Borane4]

So if you do your own regular service?

My dealer said to record that you did the service and keep any receipts as proof. Note from gas receipt experience....if you want a cash register receipt to survive as a record, you need to scan or make a copy of it. They fade all the way to blank over time.

 

[Orange Man Good]

I read 200 hr for the hydrostatic HST filter (if you have HST) and 400 hr for the hydraulic filter and fluid.

Same here. If you look closely at the maintenance schedule it shows to change the transmission oil filter and hydraulic oil filter but not the transmission fluid. So I am puzzled.

 

[Orange Man Good]

Ok so I put together another pdf file of the maintenance schedule along with the correlating sections about the transmission filter change at 200 hours and the transmission fluid change at 400 hours. The operator's manual is contradictory. On the maintenance schedule it shows to not change the transmission fluid until 400 hours. However, on the 200 hour service section it says to drain the transmission fluid when changing the filter. Draining fully synthetic hydraulic fluid at such a short interval also makes no sense given the fact and expectation that synthetic oil is supposed to extend drain intervals and service life of the fluid not shorten it.

 

[Russell King]

Yes the filter can be changed more frequently than the fluid. So filter every 200 and fluid every 400 sounds reasonable.

Draining the fluid into a clean container to change the filter is also a reasonable process to keep the fluid from draining out the filter housing whilst you retrieve the filter off the bench if you forget to have it in hand or don’t want fluid polluting the ground since it will leak while the filter is removed.

Then use fluid for another 200 hours.

 

[Orange Man Good]

Another thing that doesn't make any sense is why Kubota is requiring the transmission filter to be changed half way through the service life of the transmission fluid. Why wouldn't they call for both to be changed at the same time like a engine oil and filter change?

 

[PoTreeBoy]

Ok so I put together another pdf file of the maintenance schedule along with the correlating sections about the transmission filter change at 200 hours and the transmission fluid change at 400 hours. The operator's manual is contradictory. On the maintenance schedule it shows to not change the transmission fluid until 400 hours. However, on the 200 hour service section it says to drain the transmission fluid when changing the filter. Draining fully synthetic hydraulic fluid at such a short interval also makes no sense given the fact and expectation that synthetic oil is supposed to extend drain intervals and service life of the fluid not shorten it.

We don't know exactly what tractor you have. If it's a hydrostatic HST, I think you have 2 filters, one for the HST and one for the hydraulic system. But they share the oil I think. Non HST only has one filter. Notice that the HST tractors change both filters at 50 hrs.
I think the service procedure says drain the fluid because it pours out when you remove the filter. Then reuse it (except every 400 hours). But some folks have figured out ways to change filters without draining the oil.
It's a little confusing because it's written to cover HST and non-HST tractors even though they have different intervals.
BTW, it would help if you edit your profile with your full tractor model number.

 

[Orange Man Good]

But some folks have figured out ways to change filters without draining the oil.

How are they doing it? Jacking the front of the tractor up in the air and letting all the oil run to the back of the tractor?