By Eric Kulaas in Mechanics on 6th Feb 2010 6:00
I could! Just got off the phone with the folks at Jacobsen and we’ll be getting some of their new Synthetic Hydraulic fluid to try. I’ll post more tonight where I can use a bigger keyboard 
Most in golf know that Jacobsen has pioneered electric mowers in the industry. Currently they are producing the Eclipse 322 (3 reels, 22 inches wide??) that either comes as a full electric with battery pack, or a diesel or gas engined hybrid. There are no hydraulics on the machine. Which brings us to their Bio Hydraulic oil. Years ago they also pioneered factory fills of biodegradable hydraulic fluid in all their mowers. The first and as far as I know, only manufacture to do that.
About 10 years ago we changed our fleet over to Bio fluid. It was not without some anxiety. There weren’t that many people doing it and we were playing around with some pretty expensive equipment. But just because not that many were doing it didn’t mean it wasn’t something that would work fine. I talked to the manufacture, who were very helpful as one could imagine but they gave some references and that worked great. And actually one if my tech friends had already been working with them on bio, so he was a great source of info (Thanks BobQ 
So we made the switch. Why?? Well, if you ever drained your car on your lawn you’d see. And if you haven’t, you can imagine. Petroleum and grass don’t mix. The second part of this is if you have hoses on a machine, it’s not a question of will they leak, but when. I change the reel hoses on all the machines that go on the greens. That’s a lot. Still, you can’t change all the hoses all the time, and the one that you didn’t get, or missed, or did change but rubbed against something, will get you.. It happens. It may be years since it happened, but it will happen..
Which brings us back to Bio. We use a vegetable based bio. I’ve looked at synthetics and others. Some look fine, some raise questions. In debating the pros and cons of the new crop, I decided to stay with what we had been using. Terresolve. We have 10 years with it and no bare spots on the course because of it, which says a lot. We’ve been buying it at R&R, buying over $400 at a time and getting free freight, which is a killer. We just found out that we can buy Jacobsen Greenscare, made by Terresolve, for less.. It has a better additive pack then what we had been buying so I’m looking forward to trying it.
And that brings us to Jacobsen’s new Synthetic oil. It’s made by Terresolve and since we have a long history with them I’m pretty comfortable trying it. AS to the benefits. Right off the bat, it has a longer life. Depending on how long and how much it costs that could possibly be a wash. I’ve asked about spills and what would need to be done. Hose it down is what I’ve been told and that’s a bit les
s then with the vegetable. Other benefits, I’ll see what I can find.
It’s on it’s way. I’ll keep you posted.
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