Bad Oil New Tractor

[greenmule]

Cause mine has got clear in it,alls I ever seen was clear,guess you say kubota has red? but is it bright red?

But he said green,bright green,followed by brown,anybody ever see green oil of any kind that goes in a tractor? And after putting said green oil in it,he followed it up with some shade of brown[all going into his hydro],case closed.

 

[Skyco]

Wow I feel really bad for the OP.
But-

Should have stopped when surprised by the first container of oils green color. Then been even more alarmed/puzzled when the second container differed and was brown.
Can't find much about Smitty's but the few tractor fluid MSDS for them I turned up all say light amber color which seems more consistent with TF, not green or brown.

I sure hope the containers and some of the oil was saved. Without them it would be a tough case I figure.

I don't think the store is much at fault, Kubota certainly has no fault in this whatsoever. The manufacturer/packager of the oil seems most at fault. Of course none of that stops some lawyers from suing everyone involved.

Good luck and be sure to let us know how this turns out, hoping most of us are still around when it finally works its way through court years from now if it goes that way

One other thing I forgot to add- the Smitty's website lists a number of tractor manufacturers their fluid is approved for. Kubota isn't listed as one of them...

"Super Trac is a true multiple service oil recommended for the majority of hydraulic, wet brake, and transmission requirements of most equipment manufacturers, including Allis Chalmer, J. I. Case, John Deere, Ford, International Harvester, Massey-Ferguson, Allison and White."

 

[jimmyj]

I work in retail and whenever a disaster happens there are always two who end up having to pay

a) the manufacturer who should bear the lion's share as it's really their mixup
b) any retailer who's dopey staff say dumb things like "it's just a different batch"

However, b) could be argued as the retailer is selling the product under the impression that it is what the manufacturer says it is so really a) is the target.

See if there is any way you can find out whether or not there were any recalls or other complaints about the same items. It can't be that you were the only one who got a bad batch - there had to be a whole production run.

Me, I know that I can use whatever oil in my tractor but I am sticking with OEM parts for my own piece of mind. At least till the warranty period is over.

Good luck, bummer story.

 

[cowboy357]

Sorry for Your Troubles . But the Key words are these ( I became concerned IMMEDIATELY because the color of the fluid was bright green It had NEVER been that color before.) At That Point I Would have Stopped & At Least looked at the Other Pail of Fluid .

THAT Would have Solved all Your Troubles, By Just draining & Flushing what You had Allready put in . If Something Dont Look right it More then Likelly isn,t .

I Would have a Hard time Blaming anyone else , Much less Expect a new Tractor For My Mistake, No Matter wether it Was Packaged wrong or not . As Someone Else Had Mentioned I Would have Both Colors of the Fluid Tested to see What They Contain. But Thats just Me .

However the Dealer admitting to Installing the Wrong parts on your Tractor , I Would have a HUGE Problem with & Would Wonder What else They screwed up. Best of Luck. Bob

 

[Jay4200]

Im thinking you just taught many people a very valuable lesson on buying fluids for their tractor ! Dont skimp bottom line, on a valuable piece of equipment !

I don't think so - not getting hosed by paying twice as much for name-brand oil is not the problem. The lesson here is simply when you open a 5 gallon pail of oil, and there's antifreeze in there, don't just dump it into you machine anyway. Filling factorys do make errors on occasion - that's why fluids are color-coded.

My condolences to the original poster - I don't think there is any recourse for you.

JayC

 

[chh]

Sorry for Your Troubles . But the Key words are these ( I became concerned IMMEDIATELY because the color of the fluid was bright green It had NEVER been that color before.) At That Point I Would have Stopped & At Least looked at the Other Pail of Fluid .

THAT Would have Solved all Your Troubles, By Just draining & Flushing what You had Allready put in . If Something Dont Look right it More then Likelly isn,t .

I Would have a Hard time Blaming anyone else , Much less Expect a new Tractor For My Mistake, No Matter wether it Was Packaged wrong or not . As Someone Else Had Mentioned I Would have Both Colors of the Fluid Tested to see What They Contain. But Thats just Me .

However the Dealer admitting to Installing the Wrong parts on your Tractor , I Would have a HUGE Problem with & Would Wonder What else They screwed up. Best of Luck. Bob

I'd tend to agree, but in this sue happy world common sense doesn't much come into play. He will probably sue and win, unless the right person stumbles onto this thread, collecting from whoever gets stuck with the bill may be another story. I think one of the big lessons to take from this story is, if the fluid doesn't look right, STOP. I'm sure the parts store would have given him his money back on the fluid if he said it was wrong at the start and then he could have gotten fluid somewhere else and then there would not be a story. But that would have been too easy wouldn't it?

 

[Gizmo2]

Sorry but why or how can someone justify buying a piece of equipment for say $20,000, in the case of my last tractor and then try and save $10.00 on a $100.00 maintenance costs? People do it all the time and I simply cannot figure it out.

 

[LBrown59]

I work in retail and whenever a disaster happens there are always two who end up having to pay

a) the manufacturer who should bear the lion's share as it's really their mixup
b) any retailer who's dopey staff say dumb things like "it's just a different batch"

However, b) could be argued as the retailer is selling the product under the impression that it is what the manufacturer says it is so really a) is the target.

See if there is any way you can find out whether or not there were any recalls or other complaints about the same items. It can't be that you were the only one who got a bad batch - there had to be a whole production run.

Me, I know that I can use whatever oil in my tractor but I am sticking with OEM parts for my own piece of mind. At least till the warranty period is over.

Good luck, bummer story.

I'm sticking with OEM parts even after warranty expires
because I still don't want to pay repair bills even after the warranty expires!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I am sorry for the OP's troubles but he brought them on himself. If I opened any jug of oil and had any hesitation at all if it was any good the last thing I would do is dump it in.

What I find funny is after he used an aftermarket oil, messed up his tractor using it, blamed everyone but him self, he then states he will never use Motorcraft oil in his ford trucks for what ever reason. It sounds to me like he thinks OEM oils are a conspiracy ran by guys in black suits. OEM fluids really do not cost that much more then cheap generics and you don't have to worry when you use OEM's

 

[Coyote machine]

Sorry for your troubles, sounds like antifreeze was put into the container by the new Friday trainee at the plant. Bet there are a few other 5 gallon pails of that stuff out there. I'll give you a real life example. I was working as a control lab technician in a food plant and went to make up a batch of red raspberry or some other mix for the plant. I screwed up and made something the factory tried to get rid of as blackberry because I had messed up the formula when I made the initial mix. We didn't even sell anything like blackberry to begin with!

Point is people screw up. Even me!
Person who made up your first 5 gallon pail screwed up, compounded by your consciously choosing to install the complete 5 gallons of what you suspected was bogus oil, followed by a second 5 gallons - INSTEAD of immediately stopping the first 5 and draining it out and starting over with fresh, known to be proper fluid of WHATEVER brand. Here in lies the fatal mistake...and unfortunately for you it messed up your tractor.
Unfortunately for the rest of us if you prevail against anyone other than the manufacturer and distributor of the bogus oil we all end up paying higher prices to pay for your 'won lawsuit'.

Dats teh facts Jack !

Good luck- and if it were me I'd get my tractor fixed and move on in my life and learn from my mistakes.

 

[scott_vt]

I don't think so - not getting hosed by paying twice as much for name-brand oil is not the problem. The lesson here is simply when you open a 5 gallon pail of oil, and there's antifreeze in there, don't just dump it into you machine anyway. Filling factorys do make errors on occasion - that's why fluids are color-coded.

My condolences to the original poster - I don't think there is any recourse for you.

JayC

Good Mornin JayC,
Well yes and no ! I do see your point... but, getting hosed paying twice as much ? The first billable hour at $500 for an attorney to even open the manilla folder ! Lots of name brand fluid can be bought for $500 !

"The lesson here is simply when you open a 5 gallon pail of oil, and there's antifreeze in there, don't just dump it into you machine anyway."

If you bought the approved fluid and had receipt in hand, even if the fluid was red, you have recourse, whether you used bad judgement or not by dumping it into the tractor, your not backing yourself into a corner on future repairs JMO !

BTW, I do agree that if it didnt look right, or smell right, I wouldnt have dumped it in the tractor either !

 

[Hematite]

I'm sticking with OEM parts even after warranty expires
because I still don't want to pay repair bills even after the warranty expires!

Yes, it's amazing to the point of being ludicrous that someone will buy a $20K to $40K or more machine, then use an aftermarket fluid to save money. Even if the pretext for using aftermarket is that it "tested" better than OE, that does NOT mean that it will be better in your brand of tractor. Every brand of tractor has different specs, clearances and operating parameters. If there is one thing that I learned about this mess is that I'm going to use the factory fluids and preferably dealer service,as well.

Everyone that is "saving" money doing your own changes, do you know that when you have your tractor serviced at the dealer any TSB's or silent recalls are applied to your machine? Frankly, if I can't afford to have the dealer service the machine, at least while under warranty, I don't need to buy it. Life is WAAY too short for this kind of aggravation!

 

[greenmule]

It has nothing to do with using"factory" fluids,I used napa brand last time.

It has to do with the fact he poured gals of bright green oil followed by brown oil of some shade into his hydro system,all of same off the wall brand. How do I know that,he said it.

 

[arrow]

Well indicting the guy for poor judgement is of no use and water under the bridge. We've all made, shall I say, less than perfect choices in hindsight. If it were I in this case, I'd go first the path of least resistance. First, I would either double change hyd. oils and add mobilsol A to my changes or go right to a company that power flushes hyd equipment. At any rate, get the entire system clean. You may have some plugged orifices rather than outright wear or too much residual left of the wrong stuff. I agree about using any oil but lets humor Kubota and use their stuff. Starting with a totally cleaned out system, run the tractor with the Kubota oil in it and see if everything is cured.
Good luck and I hope you get an easy fix and your out of pocket stays minimized.

 

[newbury]

How the heck do some of you posters get off calling the green stuff "antifreeze"?
OP "It seemed to me the viscosity of the oil was a little thick."
I've never seen thick antifreeze.
However if you read my earlier post I did find two links to GREEN HYDRAULIC fluid
Enviro-Green Hydraulic Fluid 55 Gallon

Enviro-Green Hydraulic Fluid 55 Gallon
ENVIRO-GREEN-IIｮ glycol base is derived as a byproduct of making biodiesel. The fluid is green in color

,

And as far as cost - What I mind is paying twice as much for a brand name as it's identical generic counterpart. But first you have to determine that the generic IS IDENTICAL.

Does the tractor in question require UDT or SUDT?

 

[medicshawn]

I think there's a difference between what you know and what you can prove. The other question is it worth it in time and money?

I run SUDT because I haven't been able to fing anything aftermarket that says it meets SUDT specs. Plenty of stuff meets UDT but I haven't seen anything that meets SUDT. I have no problem running a high dollar synthetic if it meets or exceeds manufacturer specs. If you were running Kubota fluid and had these issues it would be a much easier fight.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Not to put too fine a point on it but, your lawyer did not SUE anyone for you if all he did was write a few letters over a few days.

He saw an open and shut case and made a demand, maybe some negotitation and accepted a settlement. He probably either charged you by the hour or had a contigency with maybe as much as one half of what Ford paid as his fee. You didn't say which. If it was the contigency then he made a pretty nickle for his fee without much effort. Which is exactly what most lawyers will try to do. That's why I would be surprised if the lawyer he spoke to thought he had a very good case.

It's a sad story and it's bad for 'broke' that it happened to him and you are entirely correct that he should shop around with other lawyers for one that might take it on a contigency.

But I can tell you that if the case were to actually go to trial he or someone would spend more than the tractor is worth just in discovery and expert testimony. Still doesn't mean it's not worth doing, if he's willing to spend the money.

Sorry I thought the sue part was understood. Yes the lawyer did file suit, yes it was an open and shut case, but still he did do the work he did, but no going to court, as they were afraid to let a jury have the case and we all knew they would get toasted.

The deal with him was, I get a new vehicle, I get to not pay a dime on the vehicle I was driving for three years, I get a free five year warranty, the lawyer gets 100% of his fees, we split anything over his fee 50-50, and if we lost I pay nothing.

As far as the deposition etc. on a good case that's money in the bank for the attorney, as it's tantamount to padding the bill.

But like you said if it's a good case lawyers would be chomping at the bit to get it, it was in my case. In fact I had two attorneys fighting for the case to do it for no money on my part

 

[Conservation]

I really think that some are pointing the finger at not using the factory brand, and it may very well be made by the same manufacturer as what you used. In fact, you could have bought from the dealer, and it could have been mislabled just as easily. I think your problem in either case is the tracability. Since you do not have the mislabled stuff with the container, you are at a huge disadvantage. Even if you did, it would be difficult to prove for sure that it was the manufacturer's doing. If you had done this all with the dealer's oil, you may very well be in the same pickle. Hindsight is 20/20, but it is easy to look backwards and wish you had done a few things differently. Maybe you would have a stonger case. Maybe you will be successful with the case as it is.
Some people look at the dealer fluids as the holy grail. Gimme a break! Then we start throwing out comparisons to the original purchase price. If you save $50 on a fluid change for the same spec fluid, isn't that still saving $50? Regardless of the original price of the tractor? Keeping careful records and samples (how many of us really do that) could have helped here. Now, if the dealer did it all, then I guess you could wash your hands of it. You put up with a hosing every time you get fluid changed on the rare, outside chance that something like this happens? That's not my style. I just can't believe that folks take this opportunity to rub someones nose in it because he did it himself. If this makes the "dealer service only" crowd sleep better at night, then goodie for them.

 

[LBrown59]

I am sorry for the OP's troubles but he brought them on himself. If I opened any jug of oil and had any hesitation at all if it was any good the last thing I would do is dump it in.

What I find funny is after he used an aftermarket oil, messed up his tractor using it, blamed everyone but him self, he then states he will never use Motorcraft oil in his ford trucks for what ever reason. It sounds to me like he thinks OEM oils are a conspiracy ran by guys in black suits. OEM fluids really do not cost that much more then cheap generics and you don't* have to worry when you use OEM's

*Yep takes the worry out of wondering.