New Holland TC29D

As of late my New Holland TC29D is going through a lot of fuel. I used to get by with 4 or 5 mowings of an hour or so each but now I don't think I could get two mowings out a tank. The fuel filter is clean, the air filters are good, I have no smoking going on other than the normal at start up and I have not lost any power that I can tell.

Any suggestions that anyone can think of?

RPM could make a difference. Did you used to mow at a lower RPM?

Just curious, there are a lot of different variables to consider.

Is the grass longer this year than it was in the past?

Is the fuel source different than it was in the past? Could be that the cetane level of the fuel you are currently using is lower than the past fuel you had been buying?

RPMs set at the same level?

Is your mower deck well lubed? Could there be something binding in the mower deck gearbox? Belts on the deck binding? In any case anything in the deck binding would require more HP to run the same RPMs and would use more fuel.

Nothing changed as far as RPM's or where I buy my fuel from. My supplier may have changed something but that I don't know. If my mower was pulling my tractor down I think I would notice it since my deck is on the upper side as for size/hp for my tractor. It seems to run fine but a major difference in fuel usage.

Murph,

A friend of mine had the exact same issue earlier this year.

He found that it was some people steeling his fuel, 5 or 10 gallons at a time. Unless your tractor is in a secure garage, it's unfortunately something to consider.