To my knowledge, an OEM kubota filter has never failed (again to my knowledge). I've never seen one die that wasn't caused by something else (field debris, sticks, trees, etc). John Deere at one point had a rash of failed oil filters. I don't know if JD makes their own, or repaints them with their name? Dunno. Kawasaki had a couple bad ones at one point. Kubota? Never-at least that I've seen.
However...
in walking around the junkards at one point, a buddy that was with me helping me pull an engine had noticed something. A large majority of cars that had "bad engine" written on the car had fram filters. I did not believe him, so after pulling that particular engine, we walked around all 94 acres and he was absolutely right. It was at that point that I decided that there must have been some correlation...maybe they are cheaper and people tend to buy cheap stuff. Maybe it was advertising campaigns. Or maybe coincidence. To this day, I've never used a fram filter on anything. And I have plenty of them to choose from. Normally just give them away to get 'em moved out of my way. They were leftover inventory when I worked for a J.D. dealer, they had about 200 Fram's for different applications (mostly American pickups).
They come prefilled with Kubota 15w40 in the engine and Super UDT2 in the transmission and front axle. This is standard across the entire product line with the exception of the gas engine mowers which are whatever the engine manufacturer wants. The ZG222/227 are 100% Kubota engines and are filled from factory with Kubota SAE30, FWIW. Kubota's oil is probably made by someone else to Kubota's strict standards that is likely not available for anyone else to re-brand. Same goes for a lot of manufacturers. Kawasaki is made by another company BUT it's different than you can buy for anything that the oil manufacturer sells with their own name on it. IF it was the same, they'd just sell it as the same thing you could buy elsewhere.
) - I have had a magnet on mine for the last 150 hours, and it says there !
