L3800 Fuel Efficency question ???

[Who is John Galt]

Hello everyone, I'm the new guy on the block . . will be pulling the trigger on a new L3800 HST very soon.

Under normal operating conditions brush hogging, front end loader/grapple work, what kind of fuel usage should I expect, i.e.; How many hours of operation on a full 10 gallon fuel tank????

Thanks!!

 

[Bluegill]

Most reports I've read are around one gallon per hour.

Mine does better, but I run at lower rpm than most and have gear drive.

540 pto rpm & hst can be a gas hog!

 

[UnionMan]

I have HST vs Bluegill's DT and I also get around 1 hour per gallon.

 

[Benhameen]

A gallon an hour seems about right, I figured mine out last summer but I don't recall exactly what it was.

One thing I found tricky is the way the tank is shaped. It holds a majority of the fuel on the top, I believe someone here said it is shaped like a fat 7,so the first half of the tank seems to go slow where than the bottom half of the tank goes very fast.

 

[Fallon]

My L3200 (same engine, slightly less displacement or something) is in the ballpark of 1 GPH as well. I tend to moderate the RPMs on my HST unless i really need them.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[quazz]

L3800 here and I get around 1 gallon per hr too.

 

[gpreuss]

About the same for my L3200DT. I guess there wasn't much savings sticking with the lesser horsepower. What I find shocking is the fuel consumption when just fooling around, without any great load.

 

[WFM]

I'm not sure about the gph , but I can say that my diesel gauge will show empty , then add 5 gallons, it shows full. Anyone else have noticed this ?

 

[buckaroo52]

I'm not sure on gph, but I feel as though my L3800 dt sips fuel. I ran it right down to empty and it only took 7 gallons to fill it although the gauge reads above full. My Komatsu WA500 at the rock quarry uses about 80~90 gallons on a slow 5 day work week, but it will also effortlessly scoop up 9 1/2 tons (onboard scales) at a time. Huge culture shock when I climb off it at the end of the day and get on my L3800 at home !

 

[Benhameen]

I'm not sure about the gph , but I can say that my diesel gauge will show empty , then add 5 gallons, it shows full. Anyone else have noticed this ?

You're right, I normally get 5 gallons at a time as well and it will show "full", but if you take it to the pump and fill it until it is actually full, it takes quite some time for it to come off the full level on the gauge. Like I said before the tank is shaped so that most of the fuel is at the top of the tank. So as the fuel level goes down it does so at a different pace on top (slower) and (faster) toward the bottom.

At least that's been my experience after about a year of owning my L3800.

 

[Who is John Galt]

Thanks everyone for the great responses . . I really appreciate you taking the time to answer a noobs questions!!

 

[Bulldog]

I'm really surprised about how many gph the 3800 burns. My M9000 with A/C on pulling a 15' batwing only burns just over 1 gph. If I remember right last year when I checked it the actual number was 1.07 gph.

 

[Bluegill]

Bulldog, mine does much better than 1 gph, but don't remember exactly. Seems like I was remembering hours per gallon? I'll have to check it later in the year when I start mowing.

Our older Kubota sips fuel. But it's larger, heavier & gets it done with less RPM.

 

[cerlawson]

My experience is that the diesels sure run long hours on a little fuel, pleasantly rewarding me.

 

[Bulldog]

Bluegill, I have asked about fuel consumption on a couple of threads but I guess nobody had ever really kept up with it. I know my L3000 doesn't have quite as much power (32 eng, 27 pto) as the L3800 but it burn way under a gallon per hr. I don't check it on every task but I know it has been as low as .57 gph while running a bushhog in the pasture.

 

[Bluegill]

Bulldog, that sounds about like mine. If I remember right I was getting 8-9 hours on 5 gallons. I'll check this spring. This 3800 gear drive doesn't labor at all pulling a 5' cutter & I'm usually at 1800-2000 rpm.

 

[Doug Ulfers]

My little BX 2370 get 3 hours per gallon..Guess it's a lot less machine, but it sure is easy on fuel!

 

[Bulldog]

Bluegill, I guess the 2 implements that labor mine the worst is my 6' finish mower or my boom mower. On both of these I try to always run the rpm's up to where the pto is at 540. The finish mower cuts better at 540 and the boom mower has a pto driven hyd pump so it has to run at high rpm's to get full function out of the hyd driven flail head. The tractor still doesn't seem bad on fuel but I can tell it does burn more fuel using them.

 

[Dune33]

I had a L1500 that would just sip fuel pulling 3 reel mowers on 2a when i went to the 3800 i thought i bought a fuel hog, HST uses more fuel than a DT i do love the 3800 but i would rather be mowing than moving the snow

Dune