Kohler

[difflock]

My take on that is to trust the manufacturer, and the more unneeded oil changes, the more opportunity for a mishap.

[Burgess]

Probably more relevant to larger companies who employ mechanics and would rather not have to be paying for them to be changing oil as often, similar to vans having longer service intervals now that they used to.

[Richard 1234]

My take on that is to trust the manufacturer, and the more unneeded oil changes, the more opportunity for a mishap.

Maybe but if you can’t change oil “without a mishap” then you shouldn’t be doing it at all and getting someone who can to do it for you.

[Stefan Palokangas]

I always been keen to keep things right when it comes to oil and filter and air filter

[Graham]

12 minutes ago, Stefan Palokangas said:

I always been keen to keep things right when it comes to oil and filter and air filter

It's never going to do any harm.  Slightly different but I used to change oil and filter on my enduro bike after every ride.  In ten years it never needed valves shimming.  That was a 250 that was ridden to an inch of its life.

[Baldbloke]

I wouldn’t be waiting 500 hours to change oil on any work tools. Oil and filters are cheap and quick.
I change every 100 on my kubota engines they are bomb proof too. Costs about £25 a time but for my peace of mind it’s well worth it.

Me too. A weeks hard work with the Yanmar digger and three times over the summer for the mower with Kubota engine for oil and filters. Semi synthetic bought in 20 litre drums. These things only have tiny sumps so it’s never too often. Both over 20 years old and both without issues[emoji1303]
Same care for the little Briggs and Stratton petrol engine on the little ride on mower.

[josharb87]

Worked a bit for a company that had a 27hp koler engine on a Vermeer grinder, a couple thousand hours, never serviced, was dry of oil when I checked, still ran and still does as far as I know! 

[GardenKit]

The Kohler operator book states 100 hrs for oil changes with filters at 200 hrs. I would not exceed the 100 hrs under any circumstances and would change more frequently on engines doing less work. For example, an engine running less than 100hrs a year would get an annual oil change. 

For the cost of the filter I would personally change it whenever the oil is changed, then it will never be overlooked.

 

Oil and filters are much cheaper than engines so worth the investment. Oil not only lubricates the engine but also carries away the contaminants as well as cooling the engine in the case of an air cooled unit, so make sure the oil is always full to the max mark.

It amazes me how many people think the minimum mark is acceptable, it really is not.

[difflock]

9 hours ago, Richard 1234 said:

Maybe but if you can’t change oil “without a mishap” then you shouldn’t be doing it at all and getting someone who can to do it for you.

Sump plug not properly tightened, or overtightened/threads stripped, wrong oil used, foreign bodies gaining entry, etc etc.

Regardless of ones skill set, the odds of any of the above mishaps increase with repetition, that is simply a statistical fact.

From someone, who at worst, due to changing the oil every 5,000, then 10,000(on switching to semi-synthetic) finally stripped the threads in the origional sump plug at near 250,000 miles, but "twigged" and replaced.

That engine was still 100% good bore/cylinder wise, simply judging from the undiminshed performance, minimal oil consumption and lack of exhaust smoke, since in the 253,000 miles I never had had cause to remove the head, therefore never inspected the bores.

Other nutters were changing the oil every 3,000 miles on the same engines, because it was apparently better for engine longivity.

For a 1.9 TD in a car, I could not see that it made any significent difference. 

P.S.

I always used the correct spec oil(but not needlessly Mobil 1 overspecced) from a reputable supplier, and always but always changed the filter with the oil, why on earth would one not(needs a scratchy head/banging head  smile there).

Oh! and was always a tad anal retentive about pulling the dipstick, and keeping the oil topped up, the idea of running on a dipstick showing just above the permitted low oil level abhors me.

Edited June 20, 2018 by difflock

[aspenarb]

11 hours ago, Stefan Palokangas said:

She done over 1000 hours now, still feels like new .

 

 

1000 hours Stefan? The grinder must only be a week old

 

Bob