The benefits of regularly changing your hydraulic oil and filters

Everyone knows that you need to regularly replace the oil and filters on your machine. Yet maintenance is often only seen as a cost item and the benefits are not considered. It is of course a nice idea that your machine is in top condition again, but what are the financial benefits of regular and planned hydraulic maintenance.

Less downtime

This of course you want to avoid at all times. This will not happen often, just because a filter has failed or your oil is no longer in tip-top condition. The biggest danger of not regularly replacing your oil and filters is that the contamination in your oil slowly eats away at your hydraulic pump, valves, motors and other hydraulic components. Even in an optimally maintained hydraulic system, contamination occurs. This is largely due to wear and tear of the moving parts in, for example, your cylinders or hydraulic pump. There is nothing you can do about it, except make sure you use the right oil and replace it regularly. This prevents contaminants from circulating again and again throughout your entire hydraulic system and slowly affecting other components and parts.

Another, often underestimated problem of not taking good care of your oil and filters is that the pressure in your system drops when a clogged filter cannot allow the oil to pass through properly. This means that cavitation can occur in your hydraulic system. Cavitation is the formation of small air bubbles in your oil, which then implode. The moment these small bubbles collapse, enormous heat is created, on a very small surface. Hard to imagine, but it goes up to thousands of degrees. You can imagine what this does to the inside of your hydraulic components and this most often occurs in your (expensive) pumps and engines.

The numbers differ a little, but you can roughly say that 70% of hydraulic components fail prematurely and unexpectedly due to inadequate filtration and oil in poor condition. Get ahead of this internal wear and tear and prevent yourself from being confronted with downtime and broken components.

Work more efficiently

In a hydraulic system that does not function optimally, you will experience unpredictable peaks in your operating pressure. These peaks obviously do not benefit the precision of your components. In excavators and shovels, this is reflected in the fact that the cylinders controlling the adapters and the boom no longer function smoothly. This is not only annoying in your work, but also causes you to not work as precise and effective as you would like.

It is difficult to express this in a percentage, because the efficiency difference varies so much per machine, operator and the work that needs to be done, but in general you can say that it works a lot more pleasantly if your hydraulic components are free of unpredictable peaks in workload.

Increase your machine's lifespan

Naturally, a longer lifespan of your hydraulic components also benefits the overall lifespan of your machines. However, there are a number of other things that extend the life of your machine that are not directly linked to your hydraulic system, but are certainly related to it. First of all, your machine has to work harder when your hydraulic system loses its optimal functioning. You will of course see this in higher fuel consumption, more about that later, but this also means that your engine has to rev more and needs to work harder than is necessary for the work at hand.

With optimally functioning hydraulics, the engine of your machine can run up to 20% more operating hours before reaching the end of its rope.

Another advantage of oil in good condition is that the working temperature in your entire machine remains lower. This is partly because your engine has to work less hard, as described above, but also because poor flow in your hydraulic system increases the working temperature in your entire machine. A higher temperature can be disastrous for the lifespan of hydraulic components. If your hydraulics run out of oil, you can write off some parts much sooner. For example, the hydraulic hoses last 5 to 10 times shorter when the temperature of your hydraulic oil rises to 85 degrees instead of 60. This same effect, not as bad as with your hoses, is also reflected in the other parts of your machine. .

We have already talked about peaks in workload. These peaks also cause unpredictable peaks in the load on the mechanical parts of your machine. Consider, for example, the boom or swivel joint of your excavator. Often expensive parts that you want to last as long as possible. The peak loads cause fatigue, hairline cracks and the eventual failure.

Lower your fuel consumption

As promised we would come back to this. The fuel consumption of your machine can remain lower if your machine is in top condition. You can compare it a bit with the blood circulation in your own body. If this is in good order, you can manage your energy much better. The same applies to hydraulics. If your engine has to work harder due to a poorly functioning hydraulic system, you spend longer on the same job and the temperature in your machine rises, meaning your engine has to work harder, cool more and consumption increases.

Together with (of course) clean air filters, a good hydraulic system can contribute to significantly lower consumption. This benefit can be up to 14%. This expressed in your costs per hour and then over the number of operating hours per year can result in significant savings.

Lower machine depreciation

If you take all of the above into account, especially the longer lifespan of your engine, components and mechanical parts, it is not difficult to imagine what properly maintaining your hydraulics will do to the depreciation of your machine. By planning your maintenance regularly and systematically, combined with regular inspections, you can extend the lifespan of your entire machine by 10 to 20 percent. For example, if your machine technically runs out after 12 years instead of 10 years, this will save you a lot of annual depreciation and, especially with a larger machine park, you will keep a lot of money on your balance sheet.

Calculation example:

Machine purchase value: €180,000

Depreciation per year with a lifespan of 10 years: €18,000

Depreciation per year with a lifespan of 10 years: €15,000

Obviously a simplistic calculation, but it does show that good maintenance pays off purely in terms of the longer technical lifespan. If you add lower consumption, less downtime, more efficient work and fewer repairs, it is easy to imagine that regularly replacing your oil and filters is also financially worthwhile.