Driving to work at 7am, the dreaded orange light pops up on my dashboard. It indicates that I need to get an oil change done on my car. I breathe a sigh of frustration, as if my car understands that I don’t have the extra hour to drive to a service center and sit in the waiting room twiddling my thumbs in an awkward room of people whose lives are just too hectic to appreciate the art of waiting.
Sometimes I wish that the oil in my car would last forever. Or at least longer than it does now, so I don’t have to drag myself to the dealership every two months to what now seems like a more time-consuming task than it ought to be.
We know our customers feel the same way with their air compressors- just like oil in our car, the lubricant must be replaced every couple thousand hours, and more than the cost, it’s the time spent to have it serviced it that makes them cringe.
These may be hopeless thoughts for my car, for now anyway, but what if we could introduce a permanent-life lubricant for our customers? An everlasting coolant that customers would never have to switch out; eliminating worries about how many thousand hours they’ve used their lubricant for and not to mention saving the hours to have it serviced.
Sound too good to be true? Or is a permanent-life lubricant just too long? How many hours would your ideal coolant last before needing to be replaced? Tell us your thoughts and we just might make it happen!
I don’t mind changing oil once a year or so, if it will make my compressor last longer. What I would not like is for my compressor to have a shorter lifespan due to
the “convenience” of not having to change the oil. It is a lot harder for me to replace a compressor than it is for me to change the oil once in a while.
PutmanEco,
I think you make a very good point, long term reliability of the compressor should never be compromised in favor of “convenience”, the two must go hand-in-hand.
As we evaluate new emerging technologies, we must stick to our core values of producing high quality and high reliability.
You can be certain that whatever we do in the future, will enhance the life and life cycle cost of owning an air compressor
Thanks for your feedback
I am all for a “lube for life” type of lubricant. I’ve had my SS3 in my garage now for about 5 years and to be honest I still have not changed the oil. And the unit even came with oil and a filter. Between cars, lawnmowers, pressure washers, motorcycles, and all the other stuff in my garage that needs routine oil changes, the air compressor seems to get the least attention. Maybe I’ll go home and give it some fresh oil this weekend……better late than never right?
Critical considerations already mentioned:
Reliability: Yes!
Cost/Convenience: Yes!
An added dimension should always be Sustainability/Environmental impact. What is the total life cycle impact of the product? Would something that never needs to be replaced cause disposal issues at end of life? Are we better off with that rather than having disposal at more accelerated rates?
Good thoughts and a challenge we must and will tackle.
The way I always relate to lubricant life: Let’s say my IR rep says I can run my compressor for about 16,000 hours on the coolant currently in it. If I translate that to mileage in my car at an average speed of 55 MPH. That represents 880,000 miles. Know any automotive lube that can do that?
The idea of a lubricant that would last forever sounds appealing at first glance, but wouldn’t you rather remove the necessity for coolant/lubricant altogether???
We can’t seem to put up with the hassle of topping off our coolant but we will get our transmission fluid changed on our cars every 3000 miles…
Brings me to wonder if that has to do with the fact that cars are a personal asset, so we will invest more time to take care of them.
Anyway, I doubt there is any technology out there that can remove the need for coolant/lubricant altogether- it would probably increase the price of the machine significantly too…
I know there are coolants that are permanent in the marketplace but have never purchased one…personally changing out lubricant is a good way to cross-check the performance of your air compressor- I’ve seen oils get darkened if they stay in their too long…
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WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INFORMED THAT THE LUBE OIL LIFE DEPENDS ON THE SITE CONDITIONS TO WHICH WE FULLY AGREE. FURTHER TALKING ABOUT WHAT OIL TO USE IN OUR CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSOR WE HAVE BEEEN RECOMMENDED TO USE IR TETRAGOLD WHICH SERVES 24000 HOURS OF LIFE OR WE SERVO PRIME. SERVO PRIME SERVES A LIFE OF 8000 HRS. CAN YOU PLEASE ADVICE US WHAT GRADE TO BE USED TO GIVE US A BETTER CHOICE OF OPTIONS. GIVING A SPECIFIC BRAND DOES NOT SERVES OUR PURPOSE TECHNICALLY. WE WANT TO BE MORE EDUCATED AND AWARE ON THE SAME TO MAKE BETTER VALUE FOR MONEY. PLEASE ADVICE IF THE SAME GRADE AS OFFERED BY SERVO PRIME / IR TETROGOLD BUT OFFERED BY A DIFFERENT VENDOR SAY CASTROL / VALVOLINE CAN BE USED IN THE COMPRESSORS? PLEASE ALSO ADVICE GRADE OF LUBE OIL TO BE USED IN IR SCREW AND RECIP COMPRESSORS,
the air compressors that we use at home are the high powered ones, we also use it for cleaning ~-~
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