Oil Analysis
It saved Ace Service Center a thousand dollars a day. Can it do the same for you?
Deborah Lockridge
Senior Editor
In 2002, Ace Service Center bought a used 1997 Ottawa switch tractor with a remanufactured engine. When oil analysis detected climbing levels of sodium and potassium, they pulled the unit from service and sent it to the shop to check for coolant leaks. After pulling the cylinder head and pressure testing it, they found four cracks near the injector sleeves.
"Scheduled repair reduced the tractor's downtime by four to five days as well as saving towing expenses," said Jim Miller, fleet operations director. "Through our oil analysis, we were able to save $1,000 per day."
Oil analysis is often used as a tool to extend oil drain intervals, but as Miller has found, it can do far more than that.
Among the many benefits of an oil analysis program, says Dan Arcy, market product manager for Shell Lubricants, are:
• Immediate alerts of trouble due to abnormal wear and contamination
• The ability to predict and schedule maintenance
• Reducing downtime
• Maximizing time to major overhauls
• Optimizing service and oil change intervals
• Increasing engine and component life
• The ability to monitor a fleet's maintenance history to factor performance and costs into asset management.
"Oil analysis is one of the most useful and important tools to not only help keep vehicles operating at peak efficiency, but also to help lower overall maintenance costs," Arcy says. "That's because a well-orchestrated oil analysis program can help detect problems early on before they develop into more costly or even catastrophic failures."
If you get a coolant leak, or find excessive amounts of fuel in the oil, or have high levels of wear in the engine, you can basically destroy the engine. Oil analysis, however, can often catch a problem while it's still easily - and inexpensively - fixed.
Oil analysis sometimes picks up problems that normally wouldn't show symptoms until after the warranty has expired, notes Alex Bolkhovsky, a commercial vehicles technical adviser for ExxonMobil.
"When I talk about the benefits of oil analysis, extending oil drains is usually the last topic I cover," Bolkhovsky says, "because in terms of cost benefit, it is insignificant compared to identifying problems early - especially before they fall out of warranty."
All these benefits are particularly important given the new generation of low-emission engines. Engines meeting the new EPA emissions standard that went into effect in 2002, especially those using cooled exhaust-gas recirculation, put more demands on engine oil.
Exhaust-gas recirculation and retarded timing add heat, acidic byproducts and soot back into the oil in your engine, says Barry Williams, president and CEO of Predictive Maintenance Services, an independent oil and fuel analysis laboratory. "With all the extra baggage the oil has to carry, it gets tired sooner than ever before."
If you hope to extend oil drain intervals with the new engines, oil analysis is an absolute must. Williams recommends that, in addition to the typical testing for things like viscosity and wear metals, make sure your oil analysis includes testing for total base number (TBN), which neutralizes acids and can deplete rapidly. In addition, test for oxidation and nitration levels, which indicate sludge, varnish and other deposits; and sulfation - high levels of which can mean acids, corrosive wear and deposits.
Soot is another important test.
"Measuring and correcting soot levels in today's heavy-duty diesel engines - especially the new EGR engines - is one of the most important aspects of [an] oil analysis program," Arcy says. He notes that Shell uses new Light Extinction Measurement technology to directly read the soot levels in the oil sample.
Getting Started
Most oil manufacturers offer oil analysis programs, and there are also independent labs you can use. You can get your results in the mail, by fax, or access them via the Internet. You may even be able to get alerts sent to your cellphone.
One feature to look for is whether the service tracks your engine's performance against typical industry results.
"Over time, as folks are consistently testing their oil, we would trend and analyze each compartment sample not only against itself, time after time, but also we're trending against the industry," says Tim Keane, laboratory project manager at Castrol, comparing the analysis to typical results for the specific make, model and product used. If your results are significantly different from the industry average for that particular make and model, the service will let you know.
You also may want to customize your testing program to meet your specific needs. Labs typically offer different levels of analysis. You may have to go up a level, for instance, to check for TBN.
Once you've chosen a program, ask your oil supplier to train your personnel on every feature of the program, recommends Mark Betner, heavy duty product manager at CITGO. Employees should be trained to accurately interpret reports and understand the results, as well as how to properly take a sample.
The first step to a good oil analysis program is physically taking the sample so it is not contaminated. You may want to put in a separate oil sampling port to avoid contamination. It's important that the containers be labeled with the right information, including the sample date, vehicle mileage, number of miles on this oil sample, and identifying information on the vehicle and the technician. Double check to see that you've filled out the report entirely and extracted an accurate sample. "Errors in the report can lead to unnecessary maintenance, incorrect repairs, overextended drain intervals and warranty problems," Betner says.
Keep in mind that one oil sample, by itself, is of limited use. Oil analysis works by looking at trends. That's why it's important to take three or more samples from your engine to begin developing a history. By establishing a trend, you can assess any abnormalities in the system and work to resolve the problem. Similarly, you need to test your equipment regularly and consistently.
What Does It Mean?
For an oil analysis program to work, you need to be able to accurately interpret the results.
For instance, there are several possible reasons for a low viscosity result in an oil analysis test, says Gary Parsons, manager of commercial automotive-North America for ChevronTexaco. One is that the viscosity improver additive has sheared, perhaps pointing to the need for a higher quality oil. Other reasons could include dilution by coolant or fuel, both of which will show up in the oil analysis report as well.
"You need to work closely with your lubricant supplier and/or lab so that someone knowledgeable is interpreting the data," Parsons says. "[It's] kind of like when a doctor tests your blood, they know a lot more about how to look at your different cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels and make a recommendation to you."
One thing that has turned some fleets off oil analysis is that it takes a considerable time commitment to sort through large amounts of data and analyze results. Some fleets want the type of hands-on control this type of analysis offers, but others want something simpler.
Unless you have someone at your fleet who's an expert in interpreting oil analysis results, you should make sure the oil analysis program you choose offers plain-English recommendations.
"One nice aspect of our program is there will be flags and remarks based on the results," says ExxonMobil's Bolkhovsky. For example, the report may show a red flag by elevated amounts of sodium or potassium, and in the remarks section it will tell you there has likely been a coolant leak.
Don't hesitate to contact your oil company, your lab or your dealer to help you if you have questions about the results or recommendations, says Castrol's Keane. "We personally review each result in our interpretation department to identify the trends in each sample," he says. "We have a lot of professional folks on staff that can help."
One of the big differences of oil analysis programs today compared to those of the past is the use of computer technology to make it easier to make sense of all the information oil analysis can provide.
Most oil analysis programs today offer some type of computer program - whether it's an online service or proprietary software you load on your desktop computer - to extensively analyze your fleet's results. Some programs go beyond the oil analysis and offer more extensive maintenance management functions.
At Castrol, for instance, you can choose between Castrol Labcheck Pro, a computer software program that allows a maintenance manager to do detailed analyses of its fleet results, or Labcheck Online, which allows users to do things like generate labels, register units and receive results via an Internet browser.
"If you're still waiting for your oil analysis reports in the mail, it's time to go online," says CITGO's Betner. "Online reports save users valuable time by offering multiple sort functions to retrieve data and compare it with industry trends or pull specific data such as identifying units that weren't sampled on schedule."
The software at work in many of today's oil analysis programs allows users to capture customized variables such as hours of operation and miles of service, in addition to quickly identifying specific characteristics of a particular engine model, says Joe Nixon, services coordinator at ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips' MaintenanceGuy web-based oil analysis program, he notes, "allows you to compare and benchmark equipment with authorized users throughout the company or world, by combining data from different sites into one database. By housing equipment condition histories within the computer database, analyzing data has never been so easy and accurate."
Ace's Miller uses the Kendall Lubricant Analysis System, which offers the user options to computerize all records, compile data to evaluate efficiencies, track maintenance history, send reminders on scheduled maintenance, and much more. Information analyzed by the KLAS program can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet.
"With this technology, we can recognize trends within very specific vehicles, allowing us to easily target individual problems," Miller explained. "This makes things like reordering parts or pulling up vehicle histories simple, and creates the ideal combination of cost savings and time maintenance."
For more about using oil analysis to extend oil drain intervals, see next month's installment of "Maintenance for Profit."
