Support? I wish . . .

[Gary Fowler]

Wow, you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Vary the speed to all levels (idle to full throttle) don't operate at one speed for hours. Let it idle until warm (don't make fast temp changes) and idle it for a few minutes after working it hard (allow oil and water to carry away some of the heat). Utilize all the attachments including the PTO at all different speeds and loads. The 1.7 hours that were on it when you got it is nothing more than slow light use around the dealer before you took delivery. Change the oil at the first recommended interval (usually half the time of the normal interval after break in/run in). All that being said you must think about where these machines end up around the globe. Some are destined to a life of dead idle some are run at full throttle from the beginning and most will never see the quality of oil, fluids, greases and fuels we have available here in the states. If you are not making a living with it (8 plus hours of operation a day) it will last you a lifetime if you follow the manufacturers maintenance schedule and don't let buddy's and family borrow it unsupervised (the most detrimental thing to a tractor that you can do). I hope I spelled detrimental right. Don't get all worked up over nothing and enjoy your new machine.

This is the best advice and follows pretty much what my owners manual recommended for my tractor AND my boat engines. WOT is ok but not for hours on end, vary the throttle between medium and WOT and keep the engine loaded. The loading of the engine helps to seat all the components in correctly. After about 10 hours, you can run it WOT all day long.

 

[dickfoster]

Yes, this is a LONG post and I am probably tilting at windmills but maybe it will help some other poor sap some day . . . And, before you say, 'Just run it at full throttle', I say, fine. BUT, why even mention the RPM thing??

OK, so I bought a new Mahindra 1533 shuttle with loader and backhoe. It was delivered yesterday, March 21. After reading the manual, I noticed on page 41 that there was info regarding engine 'run-in' which some of us might call 'break-in'.

The instructions were ambiguous at best - They mention something called the full load governed speed and they want the engine operated 100 RPM ABOVE this full load governed speed for the first hour. (Mine was delivered with 1.7 hours on the clock so I missed that boat.) I was unable to locate anything relating to the 'full load governed speed' in the manual. They also want you to operate AT the full load governed speed for hours 2 through 5. So, this morning, I called the dealer and left a message. After an hour, I called back and discovered that my contact was busy looking for an answer to my question. He said he would continue to look.

Because I had planned to use my new machine today, I decided to call Mahindra in Houston - Their phone number is conveniently provided on the cover of the manual. (Don't ask me why!) I spoke with the receptionist and she said ALL tech support requests had to go through "Brenda" but her line was in use. She said she would ring Brenda as soon as her line cleared. After a few minutes on hold, the line rang a few times and was answered by voicemail. I left a message explaining the issue and asked for a return call. After waiting for 15 minutes, I called again and explained that I did not reach Brenda and was put on hold again. After listening to another round of Mahindra commercials, the receptionist came back on and said Brenda was still on the phone. Just then, my Call-Waiting showed Brenda was calling me back. So, I switched over and Brenda said I was out of luck because Mahindra only supports DEALERS. I explained that the dealer didn't know the answer and I needed to know how to properly use my new tractor today. She wouldn't budge. So, I asked for her supervisor. After a bit of confusion between Brenda and someone who I think was the receptionist, I was connected to a line which went to voicemail. The announcement stated the supervisor, Doug Hoffman, had been out of the office for more than a week! So, I called back and was told that he was off last week but was in the office this week so I left a message for him around 10:45 AM this morning. I have not heard from Mr. Hoffman. I did call his extension (1187) at 11 PM and his voicemail announcement is unchanged even though I mentioned it in the message I left for him. So, maybe he wasn't there after all. He wouldn't leave an outdated "I'm out of the office announcement" on his voicemail after he was advised it was confusing callers, would he? Then again, he hasn't called back. So, who knows?

My purpose in posting this is to try to get Mahindra to address what seems to be an important issue and a significant shortcoming in this manual. If it is not important, why is it even mentioned in the manual? If it is important, why isn't the procedure CRYSTAL CLEAR? After all, if the mysterious 'full load governed speed' is, say, 2500 RPM, why not simply add 100 to 2500 and state that the required RPM is 2600? I mean, why make this difficult when it could easily be simple and straightforward? Just how important are tractor ENGINES, anyway?? Well, I guess the lights would still work without an engine, for a while.

But, it is too late for any explanation to help me because I went ahead used the **** thing anyway. See, I added the ages of my grand children, multiplied by 7 (for luck) and took the square root of the result. I multiplied that by 100 (why not?) and added another 100 for good measure. That came out to be 1016 so I doubled it. Heck, that wasn't so hard after all. The Mahindra lottery! YMMV.

I know this subject came up at least twice before and, as far as I can determine, not a single soul had a definitive answer.

Of course, all of the above begs the question - How does one exceed the governed speed? Isn't a governor supposed to LIMIT the engine RPM to a specific level? Is there a way to defeat the governor to operate above its limit? Or, should you just run it down a BIG hill for an hour? (That ain't in the manual either!)

So, whaddaya say, Mahindra? Any of the World's Number One Selling Tractor Houstonians reading this?

PS This applies to 1538 tractors as well - Same manual.

I just got a 1538 and in the manual I saw somewhere it said to run at least 1500 RPM for the first few hours so that's what I've been doing. I ran it up to about 1800 for the BH in order to keep the bucket speeds reasonably controllable until I get the hang of things. I think I have a whole 6 hours on the clock.

 

[Pat Uper]

And here we are in late 2021, and the manual for my new 1626 still has the same crappy wording.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Most manuals are written by "Technical Writers", Engineers and professionals in the particular field are SOMETIMES used also. LOL!
Early in my career I had learned to look at any manual as an incomplete work ( most have some error in them). I was 14 years old and was looking at an adjustment on an International 151 combine, Short story was, the manual was wrong. Local dealership mechanic came to help as my dad was in the hospital. "said cross that out it will never work that way". Showed me how the adjustment needed to be made and got the machine functioning properly.

 

[PuffyC]

The most surprising thing about all this is that you got to talk to an actual human. Most companies go to great effort and expense to make sure that never happens.