1st service - Fluid recommendations

[Michael Knight]

Ok, I bought 1 gal of UDT from the kubota store and almost had to get a small business loan for that. I can only imagine what 11.5 gallons will cost.

Who has a recommendation for something that is good quality, but not out of control expensive? I have seen the fluids at wal marts, and have had good luck with their car oils in the past, but I couldnt figure out if you get the R&O type or the plain type. I dont mind paying a little more for better quality because they hydrolic fluid stays in for so long, but unless it is necessary, I dont want to pay the 250 bucks or so that it would cost me to by the UDT from the dealer. If there is a place to order UDT cheaper that would help too.

I was planning on using Rotella 15W 40 for the engine and gear oil for the front end.

I am doing all this on a MX5000 4x4 that I bought Aug 06. I have 44 hrs on it, so I need to go ahead and do this soon. I'm using it for creating fence lines, bush hogging, gardning and general small farm use, but I am in south Mississippi and it gets HOT down here.

 

[N80]

Kubota sells SUDT and UDT. SUDT is ridiculously expensive but out of ignorance and fear I went ahead and used it for my first change for my L4400. It is warm here also and my L4400 is not HST so the benefits of SUDT over UDT are probably marginal. But check the price of plain Kubota UDT, it did not seem all that expensive to me.

 

[LBrown59]

Ok, I bought 1 gal of UDT from the kubota store and almost had to get a small business loan for that. I can only imagine what 11.5 gallons will cost.

Who has a recommendation for something that is good quality, but not out of control expensive? I have seen the fluids at wal marts, and have had good luck with their car oils in the past, but I couldnt figure out if you get the R&O type or the plain type. I dont mind paying a little more for better quality because they hydrolic fluid stays in for so long, but unless it is necessary, I dont want to pay the 250 bucks or so that it would cost me to by the UDT from the dealer. If there is a place to order UDT cheaper that would help too.

I was planning on using Rotella 15W 40 for the engine and gear oil for the front end.

I am doing all this on a MX5000 4x4 that I bought Aug 06. I have 44 hrs on it, so I need to go ahead and do this soon. I'm using it for creating fence lines, bush hogging, gardning and general small farm use, but I am in south Mississippi and it gets HOT down here.

I just use S-UDT.

 

[SteveA]

Here in New England I use SUDT. Since I have somewhere in the range of 20K invested in my tractor and the toys that go with it, I use the factory recommended stuff. A few hundred more won't kill me and gives me a little peace of mind. I do use Wix motor oil, air, and fuel filters though. Kubota OEM filters for the hydraulics.

 

[jruss]

I also live in the south and use Rotella 15w40 for the engine and SUDT in the Hydro. I think that using the recommended oil in the hydro is just a good precaution for long life.

 

[droelle]

search this forum using "chevron" as the keyword and you will find lots of info relative to fluids including some feedback on the walmart stuff i use chevron and am quite satisfied

gluck


dave

 

[RobJ]

I live in the south and have a gear tractor. I use the basic hydraulic tractor oil I get at walmart or the local COOP. Ford, GM all recommend using OEM parts in their cars and trucks. But probably very few do...probably because of the cost AND someone figured out who makes them.

Last I checked Kubota doesn't own an oil company but does like selling OEM parts at high prices. They spec the oil and someone else bottles it up. I think it's funny when I go to the Honda place to buy parts for my ATV and see Honda motor oil.

It's interesting how some folks put 60 hours a year on a $15,000 tractor doing light duty work and spend all the extra money on OEM parts. But buy discount parts for a $45,000 truck that they put 10, 20, 30 thousand miles on it a year.

I know tractor is the baby! Maybe the stuff has gold dust in it and is better, I don't think there is much difference, especially in a gear tractor. Worst case is go with UDT, it's cheaper and is interchangable with SUDT??

Kubota UDT/SuperUDT Specifications

 

[teg]

I wonder if Michael Knight meant to say SUDT in stead of UDT ? I used the SUDT for the first changed in the hope to make it not whine too much. It did not make any difference but then again I don't know what the dealer used (I assumed the cheaper stuff). Next change, I'll go back to UDT.

PS. Honda "Genuine"... love it!

 

[canoetrpr]

Interesting discussion.

I ended up going with Premium UDT - which is all they sell in Canada.

I talked to a dealer up here who sells a lot of Kubota equipment and one of the service managers told me that after warranty has expired they use generic hydraulic fluid on tractors to save on the cost of the change for their customers. He claims that they have never seen a failure related to it or any performance loss.

Another poster here pointed out that the his jerky 3PH on the L3400 became silky smooth once he swiched to cheap hydraulic oil from the UDT stuff!

I'll bet there are thousands of Kubotas with thousands of hours in the hands of their second and third owners who have never so much as stepped into a Kubota dealership, let alone bought UDT or SUDT there. They are most likely all running regular hydraulic oil.

Will I stick to Premium UDT for my baby... probably. It works, is what is speced and I don't put enough use on the tractor to worry about the extra couple hundred every two years. I doubt that it would self distruct if I put in regular hydraulic oil that matched UDT specs.

BTW. the dealer I bought service parts from sold (genuine!) Kubota Canada branded 15W-40 oil also.

 

[Michael Knight]

I wonder if Michael Knight meant to say SUDT in stead of UDT ? I used the SUDT for the first changed in the hope to make it not whine too much. It did not make any difference but then again I don't know what the dealer used (I assumed the cheaper stuff). Next change, I'll go back to UDT.

PS. Honda "Genuine"... love it!

Thats a good question, I think it was the regular UDT, but I didnt realize they sold two kinds. Whatever it was it was very expensive for 1 gallon of fluid.

I have a manual shift tractor, so I am thinking of trying some of the chevron fluid or else the wal mart brand. If I was to do that, would the R&O type or regular hydraulic fluid be the correct type for my tractor? I dont know what R&O stands for but I noticed they had two kinds at wal marts and I didnt know which kind I should get if I got one from there.

Despite what many may have said one way or the other, I have had fine luck with the walmart brand oils in cars. I ran it for a while in my truck before I tore it down to make it into a stroker motor and the cross hatches were still on the wall at 150K and it looked great in there. Even the guy at the machine shop was impressed with how good it looked in there. I think having clean oil is more important then what brand it is.

 

[RobJ]

BTW. the dealer I bought service parts from sold (genuine!) Kubota Canada branded 15W-40 oil also.

Man you DON'T want to go there.. Begs the question if Kubota hydro oil is so important, then why is the motor oil less important. I bet less than 0 people buy that Kubota oil. Hey it's Kubota's special mixture!! And the engine oil gets more abuse than the hydro oil.

Rob

 

[teg]

oops, make that 1 person that buys that Kubota oil. I didn't know better, I didn't have time... I was stupid... I just ask for everything for the 50 hour change for an L2800 - which also consisted of a fuel filter and an air filter. Needless to say, it the last time I buy ANYTHING from the TV town, Mayberry.

 

[Michael Knight]

Yeh, I need to find the filters too. I dont usually put too much stock in OEM stuff unless I can tell that its actually better. I changed the hoses for the crankcase breather system on a friends 02 Audi. They had all fallen appart because of the crappy materials they used. He wanted OEM, so thats what we got. 280 bucks for 3 ft worth of hoses with a pcv valve. OUCH!

 

[canoetrpr]

I will admit that I bought the Kubota oil too. I was there to buy the rest of the stuff, the oil was there.

Next spring at 100hrs will will be switching over to 0W-40 synthetic anyway. I really liked how the 15W-40 runs in the summer compared to the factory recommended 10W-30. The tractor stays much cooler with the 15W-40. It gets cold here so would be nice to have the 0W-40. I've seen Valvoline and Rotella 0W-40 at the TSC store here for about what I paid for the "OEM" Kubota 15W-40.

 

[RobJ]

Hopefully the oil is not that much more expensive than the regular oil. But if going synthetic, you are going to pay more anyway.

For the record I do buy OEM parts, filters and such. I don't know if there is a non OEM air filter I can buy and I only use about 1 oil filter a year. I think they were still only 5-6-7 bucks anyway. I swapped out the fuel filter for a Racor and those are only $10 or so each. The current one has been there for 18 months.

Rob

 

[Volfandt]

Yikes, I just did the 300 hr service on my BX23 and I've always used Kubota oil(s) & filters and so far no problems and I haven't had to add any fluids in between scheduled service's.
Lets see, thats 4 engine oil & filter changes and 2 HST oil & filter changes over the course of 3 yrs. Course since we're only talking about 3 gals of HST and less then 1 gal on engine oil I can live with staying w/the OEM branded products

Needless to say, it the last time I buy ANYTHING from the TV town, Mayberry.

The Mrs and I paid Mt Airy a visit last Nov and enjoyed the "Mayberry" atmosphere for a day & night. It was a nice short excursion for a couple Andy of Mayberry fans

 

[pitt_md]

OK,
I didn't want to have to do this but I can't take it any more.....

What the He!! does UDT mean? I looked and this is all I could find:

Acronym Definition
UDT Ujian Darjah Tiga (Malaysia)
UDT Under Deck Tonnage
UDT Under Declaration of Trust
UDT Underage Drinking Taskforce
UDT Underwater Demolition Team (US Navy SEALs)
UDT Uni縊 Democr疸ica Timorense (Timor Democratic Union, East Timor)
UDT Uniform Data Transfer (COM-based technologies)
UDT Unit Data Message (SS7)
UDT United Dominions Trust Ltd (UK)
UDT Universal Data Translator (modeling and simulation)
UDT Unstructured Data Structure
UDT Uridine Diphosphate-N-Acetylgulucosamine Transferase
UDT User Data Type (Microsoft)
UDT User Defined Type
UDT User Design Team
UDT User-Defined Table
UDT Utility Dog Tracker (AKC title)

 

[teg]

"...Kubota Super UDT Fluid is a multi-purpose all-weather tractor hydraulic fluid..."

(BUT I have no idea what UDT actually stands for...) Sorry...

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

What the He!! does UDT mean?

I was wondering the same thing. I use TDH fluid which is "Transmission-Differential-Hydraulic" required for equipment that utilizes the same fluid for hydraulics and trans/diff. Not to be confused with regular hydraulic fluid. Maybe UDT is the same as TDH. Can't imagine what it might stand for? Universal Diff. Tranny?

 

[RobJ]

What the He!! does UDT mean?

It means big profits for Kubota. And SUPER means super profits for Kubota.