Farmer and contractor Richard Stecher admits grease, oil and coolants are seldom seen as the ‘star of the show’, but is adamant high-quality lubricants are integral to the success of his diversified agricultural enterprises.
Based on his property near Seymour, in Victoria, Richard is a first-generation farmer who manages 4000 hectares of winter cereal crops and runs a small herd of Angus breeders.
He also owns and operates Stecher Ag — which delivers silage, hay and harvesting contracting services across the eastern states of Australia.
Since starting his business more than 20 years ago, Richard has grown his fleet of equipment to 15 John Deere tractors, two John Deere S-Series harvesters and two John Deere balers, with a combined 250,000 hours on the clock, through meticulous planning and maintenance regimes.
“I learned early on that if you want your tractors to pay for more tractors, that's not hard, but if you want your tractors to pay for more land, you need to really dot your i's and cross your t's,” Richard said.
Part of this process is ensuring optimal care of the Stecher Ag fleet which, like most farming entities, is always racing against the clock to beat the weather, prevent downtime and to take off crops when they’re at optimal quality.
“The value for money in John Deere lubricants is a no-brainer for me,” Richard said.
“Twenty years ago, when I bought my first John Deere tractor, the salesman had been a well-regarded technician and spoke very highly of the lubricants, so I started using them and we’ve stuck with them ever since.
“We've done about 250,000 hours on John Deere equipment and we've never had a tractor split or a transmission failure.
“If you do the economics on the low failure rate of the product, it will stack up every time. Even the work utes and trucks get John Deere oil.”
The Stecher Ag fleet contains tractors of all ages and hours, so preventative maintenance is high on Richard’s agenda, ensuring the machines keep running, regardless of conditions.
“There are tractors in our fleet with 10,000 and 12,000 hours on them and they’re used day-in, day-out. You can hook a baler onto a tractor and drive it at 50km/h for two hours in 40-degree heat.
“So the fact that we've never had any major failures in transmissions is testament to the quality and longevity of the lubricants.”
Stecher Ag uses a range of John Deere products designed for heavy-duty applications, including Plus-50 II premium engine oil, Hy-Gard hydraulic/transmission oil, GL-5 gear oil, and Therma-Gard coolant, now marketed under the Cool-Gard brand.
Richard said he notices the difference the lubricants make in keeping the tractors cool in hot, dry and dusty conditions, and the extended working life of each machine makes it worth the cost.
“We might pay a few hundred dollars extra for a 205-litre drum of Hy-Gard, for example, but out of every drum of oil we get a couple of major services.
“If you calculate that over a 9000-hour lifespan, a tractor has only six major services. For the peace of mind, it’s worth it.”
With eight or 10 tractors doing more than 1000 hours a year, the services come around fast.
Richard said he uses the extended drain interval for oil changes at the 500-hour interval.
“We always take the engines out to 500 hours and when we drain it, the oil still seems quite viscous. We have very little or no oil burn, even out to those intervals.
“We say around here, the poor man pays twice. And I think if you cut corners, it'll bite you every time.”