Purchasing Gear Lubricants: Be Careful When Playing the Numbers Game

摘要

When it comes to purchasing gear lubricants, many people on both the sales and purchasing side decide to play the numbers game. The person with the most numbers, or the biggest numbers, or the lowest numbers, must have the best product - right? Wrong; gear oil selection is not a game, and numbers alone cannot determine the right product for an application. Too much information can be just as much a problem as too little. A purchaser can be tricked into selecting the wrong oil if he does not completely understand what the numbers mean. As the old saying goes, "Figures don't lie, but liars do figure." This is not to suggest that gear lubricant sales representatives are liars, but rather that too often neither the sales rep nor the purchaser completely understands what the numbers on a technical sheet or price list really mean. An attempt will be made here to explain what you should consider when choosing a gear lubricant for a specific application and to show why choosing based solely on the numbers is not the best bet.