5 Types of Lubricants You Should Have on Hand

1. Engine and Motor Oil

Engine and Motor Oil is not only the most common type of lubricant, but also the most crucial lubricant for automotives. Engine oil is responsible for the complete lubrication of an engine and its combustion chambers to reduce friction in moving parts. These lubricants must maintain a consistent viscosity at higher temperatures. There are also a few additives in engine oils to increase engine life. These additives include dispersants, detergents, and anti-wear additives.

2. Gear Oils

Gear oils are mostly used for manual transmissions, transmission boxes, and the differentials in vehicles. They are known for having very high viscosity and having extreme pressure additives in them that are called Phosphorus sulfur compounds to deal with the high-pressure.

3. Greases

Greases are mostly made either with petroleum or synthetic products, thickener, and additional additives. Greases are very similar to oil, but its thickness is more ideal for lubrications of gears, bearings, and linkages.

4. Transmission Fluids

Transmission Fluids are a key component of a systems operation and overall performance t’s responsible for lubricating mechanical parts, maintaining fluid pressure, cooling, preventing oxidation, conditioning the gasket, and preventing rust. A lot of times people get both Gear oil and transmission fluid since they both have to do with the transmission. But, it is important to understand the difference in what they were designed to do. Mainly, transmission fluid is made to work with automatic transmission, where gear oil it mostly used to work specifically with manual-type gear boxes. Keep in mind that there are times where there are exceptions to these rules.

5. Industrial Oils

Industrial Oils are made to protect machines from damage from extreme temperatures, dust and dirt, moisture, and high pressure. Industrial Oils are made from base oils and additives. Base oils can be either natural, mineral, and synthetic.

When Does Each Oil/Lubricants Need to Be Changed?

It’s important to understand the longevity of each type of lubricant and oils and when they need to be changed to ensure your using the best quality lubricant and oils at all times.

Engine Oil should be changed at regular intervals. Most of all vehicles and engines have a standard oil change time which depends on either distance driven or time since last changed. For generators, most owner’s manuals outline the change intervals, but a rough estimate would be around 50 hours of use for smaller generators or 500 hours for larger generators.

Gear Oil has a much longer life and does not have to be changed as much as engine oil and should be changed around 62,000 Miles.

Greases don’t need to be changed, but they do need to be reapplied a times. It’s important to not mix greases unless they are compatible with each other. If they are not compatible, you can run a risk of the mixture hardening, which results in an effectiveness of not even having any grease at all.

Transmission Fluids should be changed dependent how-to vehicles make and model, similar to engine oil. It’s very important to be diligent with checking the transmission fluid and changing it, and your vehicles transmission will last up to 200,000 and possibly more.

Industrial Oils are also very similar in how often you should change it to engine oil and Transmission Fluids in which you check the machines standards in when to change the oil on it.