Change interval for Fram Ultra on lawn tractor

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I have an older Craftsman mower with 17 HP Kohler engine. I started using a Fram Ultra XG3614 in place of the tiny, overpriced Kohler oil filter. I use the mower about 30 hours per year and change the oil yearly. How many years could I safely run the Ultra before changing?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
Someone please chime in with how many hours on a car with 20000 miles!

I am going to predict that the filter will outlast the engine in normal use unless it gets unusually hot.
 
I'd change it one time a year you have a lot less oil in that engine than in a car engine it has a lot of cleaning to do. I would have just gone with a Tough Guard!
 
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I have a similar John Deere with a pressure fed engine. I change the oil once every two years and do the filter at the same time.

However, it's now staying so clean (WIX filter) and a history of annual changes (in the past), that I'm going to leave the filter on longer - every other time, becasue it's inverted and makes such a mess to change ... So for me, that will be every 4 years.

I have run the same oil and filters on seldom used trucks for up to five years at a time w/o incident. Those trucks got more hours than your tractor per year.

It's a smaller engine with a smaller sump, but it may not be consuming much oil, even over the course of the year ... So, if your consumption is low, and your oils stays clean (looking), there is no anti-freeze to worry about, so changing is not a big deal. No temp control other than air flow, so it burns off all the blow-by fuel load when it's hot which happens fairly quickly.
 
Originally Posted By: maxdustington
Someone please chime in with how many hours on a car with 20000 miles!

I am going to predict that the filter will outlast the engine in normal use unless it gets unusually hot.


20,000 miles / 60 miles (assuming an average speed of 60) = 333.333 hours.

60 mph on average is very generous so the numbers are conservative.
 
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW
I'm thinking you could just run it forever.


+1 And it would not make sense to change it yearly, however, how would a Bitgoer deal with that? How about once every 4 years. You could remind yourself when it's an election year change the tractor filter!

lol.gif
 
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I do highway driving to work and my car displays an averages of 37 mph. That's equivalent of 540 hrs. But my car doesn't run at the OPE max of 3600 rpm but does have an oil capacity of 6.4 qts.
 
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Yup 2years ago i put a fl400s and pp5w30 in my 24hp craftsman and i look dissapointedly at the dipstick every coup,e months to see honey golden oil clean as a whistle.

Oh well leave it in there until it starts to not feeling slippery between my fingers. Indont thnk it will ever get dark. I cut in 100 degree texas heat too for half the season.
 
Oil is cheap and I like my deere tractors they usually get 1-2 changes a year

only 2 of the 4 have oil filters though.. which makes a difference.
 
It maybe depends on how often you change the oil. In my B&S 24 HP engine, I use it about 25 hours a year and do an oil and standard filter change every 50 hours. There's little reason you can't go longer with an Ultra even though it will retain a small amount of used oil.
 
Originally Posted By: Oldtom
I have an older Craftsman mower with 17 HP Kohler engine. I started using a Fram Ultra XG3614 in place of the tiny, overpriced Kohler oil filter. I use the mower about 30 hours per year and change the oil yearly.

Like you, my annual hours don't come to the recommended 50 hour OCI, but they easily exceed 25 hours and thus the temptation to stretch the OCI to 2 years. For me I find it easier to change both the oil and filter once a year and just sleep easy. The XG3614 is overkill; use a TG3614 or Wix 51348 once a year and just go about your business.
 
Originally Posted By: danez_yoda
Yup 2years ago i put a fl400s and pp5w30 in my 24hp craftsman and i look dissapointedly at the dipstick every coup,e months to see honey golden oil clean as a whistle.

Oh well leave it in there until it starts to not feeling slippery between my fingers. Indont thnk it will ever get dark. I cut in 100 degree texas heat too for half the season.


Yeah....lol, same here.
 
just like my summertime motorcycles change oil + filter at end of riding-mowing season in Pa.
 
Originally Posted By: danez_yoda
Yup 2years ago i put a fl400s and pp5w30 in my 24hp craftsman and i look dissapointedly at the dipstick every coup,e months to see honey golden oil clean as a whistle.

I see that too on my John Deere D140 with B&S V-Twin using a Wix 51348 filter. The problem comes when I drain that same oil it is black and not the honey golden color we see on the dipstick.
 
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