Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: G'day everyone. Welcome to lubrication Experts. Today we have a very special episode because I get to interview an old mate of mine, actually from my mobile days at Mister Paul Cigalla. So Paul has been heavily involved in the transportation, trucking kind of diesel engine lubricants world for a very long time. I won't give away too much about his age, but in fact we are honored today to be with a recipient of the Silver Spark Plug award from the TMC. So Paul brings with him a huge amount of knowledge from this particular area which has gone through, frankly, a lot of changes over the last couple of years.
Not only with developments in technology, but huge supply chain disruptions and things like that from the COVID era. So we'll talk a little bit about technology, we'll talk a little bit about the state of the business. And I think it's going to be a very enlightening discussion. So all, thanks so much for being with us.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: No problem, Rafe. Appreciate the opportunity to have a discussion with you.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think this one's going to be good. So having mentioned Covid, I think it's probably worth setting the stage for everyone.
There was some pretty intense stuff that went on just with supply chain in general. And obviously trucking and transportation is just such an integral part of that in your dealings kind of out in the industry, have you started to see, is it like a return to normalcy?
Are there some aspects of the industry which have changed forever? What do you see kind of on the ground?
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd say yes and no. So while things are improving after Covid, freight has been down here in the US and is just starting to recover, fleets that are running foods and grocery stores and food for schools and hospitals, they seem to be fine and dandy, but customers that are running freight, the freight industry has been kind of on the downturn.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting because I really felt like with COVID there were some instantaneous changes as well as some permanent changes. I mean, most people would be familiar with the whole working from home phenomenon. That's something that seems like a very permanent change.
Whereas there were a whole bunch of things, for example, toilet paper availability, which were a bit more temporary.
So it's interesting to see that there are some hangovers still a couple of years after all the lockdowns have ended, some of that spills over into people, personnel as well. So a couple of times on this podcast, we've talked a little bit about skill shortages, shortage of tradespeople available to certain industries.
So we have briefly touched on it. Will you be able to talk a little bit more to what it's like for, say, fleet operators?
Are they finding it difficult to find people?
I get the sense that maybe the answer would be yes. So if yes, are there any kind of tools that they have available that are helping them to sort of bridge that gap between how many people they have and how many people they ideally need?
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, definitely yes. There are technician and driver shortages that's been ongoing for quite a while. And some of the tools that we've seen them use are mentoring programs, aligning themselves with technical schools so that they can train the technicians before they get on the job, and then aligning them with a mentor so that they can show them the right way to complete the job. And that all helps with retention of the technicians, so they're not looking for their next.
Their next gig.
We've been doing a lot of training with ase as well as technical schools as well as our customers to help them, you know, show how to do a proper oil change, regreasing, get them to understand the different nomenclatures of the oils and the greases and make, you know, knowledgeable decisions when they're doing a service, what the truck actually does need to be properly serviced?
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really interesting. So maybe to touch on that sort of relationship with some of the trade schools and sort of being able to reach maybe earlier into the education process, does that dynamic kind of favor any particular part of the trucking industry? I imagine in order to be able to support those kind of programs, you need maybe a little bit more resources, a little bit more scale, and that might favor sort of like the larger trucking companies than the sort of mom and pop establishments you're seeing.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: The smaller and medium fleets do the same thing because they have a hard time getting technicians and retaining them.
These guys learn their trade and then they're looking for what their next opportunity is. But if they're treated correctly, they're treated like family, they're paid a fair price, they'll stick around. And if they feel like they have some skin in the game and, you know, they take some ownership in the company, it goes a long way.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. And from a lubricant specifics perspective, because you're obviously from the mobile world and you mentioned that you guys are doing a lot of training with your customers.
What are the kind of like, the high points that you guys like to hit? You know, obviously, you know, when you're doing lubricants training, you only get so much time with your customers. Right. So what are the key kind of takeaways that you want your customers to be able to take into their workplace?
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Yeah. The biggest thing is how to properly take a used oil sample and how to properly regrease a truck.
Those are two key areas that we see the most people doing things the wrong way. So if we can train them how to properly do it, it goes a long way. Goes a long way for getting proper samples. Use oil analysis reports make sense and gives a longer life, especially on the regreasing side.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome.
Now, on that point with use oil analysis, I'd say here in Australia, it's not necessarily common practice for large fleets to be doing it on a fleet scale level.
So what's the. Maybe, like, the general consensus over in the US, are most fleets engaging in routine oil analysis?
What kind of sampling interval are we just taking samples at the end of the oil drain?
What kind of work are they also doing in terms of looking at fleet wide data to be able to gain insights into their operations?
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd say for my large fleet customers, 70% to 75% of them are doing used oil analysis.
Majority are doing a drain. But depending on what the oil drain interval is, they may be doing intermediate samples as well as drain samples to kind of catch any kind of contamination, be it EGR, cooler failures or fuel dilution or any kind of wear, excessive wear that's happening inside of the engine.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really interesting. I wish that Australia could get to that sort of place, but one day, one day, we can hope. So. Maybe one of the ways that we can help address some of those skill shortages that we talked about is through things like doing oil drain extensions. Right. It seems like a relatively small upgrade to a fleet, but at the same time, the less interaction that the mechanics need to do with the vehicle, the more time that they have available to do other activities. Right. So, for me, absolutely. One of the ways that we can help out with, with lubricants is potential oil drain extensions.
So how can we. How are you seeing your customers kind of achieve that?
You know, are there I. Any new tricks that we're applying? You know, is there any kind of.
You know, we talked a little bit about data analysis at sort of a fleet wide level. Are there any.
Any kind of, like, new technologies that they're using?
What's the kind of feel on that?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So the big thing is most small and medium fleets are still doing conservative oil drain intervals. They're not even doing OEM oil drain intervals. And that really would help alleviate some of the pain points for the technician shortage, allow them to do other repairs than just doing oil changes. So we're using used oil analysis as a tool to show the remaining life left in the equipment, as well as left in the engine oil to safely extend their oil drain intervals to something that they feel comfortable with. Maybe they're not quite out to OEM, but maybe we can get them a lot closer than they were in the past and kind of free up their technician time.
A lot of the stuff that we're doing as well or seeing done in the industry are sensors online sensors that are looking at wheel quality.
There are tools that are looking at other sensors on the equipment to kind of be proactive, to look for anything before it becomes a breakdown or a catastrophic failure.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Hmm. Yeah, interesting. So, with the online oil sensors, I've got a little bit of experience using those in like industrial applications, but not really in anything like mobile equipment or fleet.
What kind of sense of information have you found is useful?
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the main thing is looking at the quality of the oil, looking at viscosity or any kind of contamination. Field dilution or coolant leaks are easily picked up with the sensor technology on a real time basis, and then alerting the customer to address the issue before it becomes a breakdown.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. I mean, the range of sensors that I've seen, things are improving all the time in that space. Um, so far, most of them seem to either work on, you know, particle counting methods, which are relatively easy to put into a, an inline unit. Right. Because, you know, the capacity to, to do optical particle sensing is, you know, it has been developed at least. What I find with the kind of like the oil quality sensors is that they're usually doing something like dielectric constant, or that is to say that then they're using a method which is not like an ASTM standard that we accustomed to seeing on an oil analysis test, so.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: How are people doing that correlation between kind of what we're seeing on the inline sensor, which is, let's say, non standardized testing, versus what you would get out of a regular laboratory?
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the online sensors still have a ways to go, so we're doing testing on the oil at our lab to collaborate what we see in the sensor data, and then using that information to build the algorithms to be able to say, well, we saw this one time and this was what the issue was. So if we're seeing that again, then this is what it's an EGR cooler leak or it's a fuel dilution issue.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. Really interesting. Yeah, there's some, there's some cool new technologies and, you know, I like to see that the majors are starting to apply them as well. Right. Because generally that's a signal that there's going to be kind of wider acceptance of them within industry. And some of these inline and online censors, I think really good as a kind of an early warning tool.
It doesn't replace lab analysis, but, yeah, can tell us a lot.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: We're also seeing OEMs employ some of the things we've seen on the passenger vehicles, where they have how many times the vehicle was started, how many times it was stopped, how many times it or how long it idled, how long was it road speeds and using that to tell the customer when to change their engine oil.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Thats interesting. Yeah. Right. So starting to pull data from more sources and integrate it with the oil analysis data. Again, something that im sort of seeing a little bit more on the industrial side as well. And that sort of wider appreciation for the value of the oil analysis data is really, really nice to see.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: All right, so if we broaden out a little bit now, we talk about, let's say, for example, fleet trends, macro trends within the transportation industry. I think probably the first thing to know would be how is the fleet itself changing? And this is going to vary a little bit regionally. So if you want, you can speak specifically to the US market because obviously things in Europe and in Japan and Asia are going to look a little bit different. But I, broadly speaking, you know, are old vehicles, are they, are they being phased out? You know, because obviously the cycle time on commercial vehicles tends to be longer than for passenger vehicles.
You know, are they being phased out or do we see them like, being, having real extended service?
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing we've seen is trading cycles have, have gotten longer, and that's because of a couple of different things.
Better equipment, longer life. We've seen fleets that trade in every two, three years, maybe now trade in every four or five.
And then getting equipment has been a struggle at times. So they may be keeping their equipment longer only because they can't get new equipment. So we see a lot of older equipment staying in and then maybe doing more used oil analysis on there to kind of watch out for anything that might be happening inside of the engine because typically we see GR, cooler leaks in that five 6700,000 miles range that they may not normally run their equipment to. So used oil analysis can kind of help them pick out those issues.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Mm. And when you say, like the trade in time. Right. Because this might be something which is a little bit unique to the US market. When you talk about that sort of two to four year cycle time, is that the entire vehicle is going back to the manufacturer or is that just, let's say, for example, the engine being replaced?
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Nope. The whole vehicle goes back to be traded in.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean, you know, speaking to the sort of the different dynamics across the world, I mean, that vehicle doesn't disappear. Right. It doesn't get cut up for parts. So usually it does end up somewhere else in the world.
So that's.
Yeah, yeah. So for anyone that's not listening from the US, that's. I think my understanding, at least, is one of the more unique aspects of the kind of the US transportation fleet. I believe us over here, potentially the recipient of some of those, although they are left to right hand drive conversions. So that can make it a little bit difficult.
One of the differences in Australia is that the fleet tends to be a fair bit older than in the US. So maybe globally at least, I see a lot of older vehicles out there. And when we start to talk about the diesel engine oil categories. So that's your CK four. Um, CI four, for example, was. Was one of the older categories. You know, um, as we've moved into the CK four era, the CI four and earlier kind of lubricants, um, their availability is becoming very constrained.
CK four is supposed to be a completely backward compatible, uh, uh, you know, standardization. However, when I talk to a lot of fleet operators, they are still of the opinion that I have an old vehicle. It was made in the CI four era.
That is the oil that I should be using.
So once and for all, is that correct?
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, all of our customers that have older vehicles that would take a CI four, CI four plus Ch are using CK four with no issues at all. It's fully backwards compatible.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Yep.
And maybe to give people that sort of assurance, what are the improvements that enable it to be backward compatible?
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Better viscosity control, better oxidation stability, better wear protection, versus some of those older oils. So they'll see. They'll definitely see improvements in all of those areas.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yep. And I think one of the things that helps with the backward compatibility in the diesel engine oils is, you know, until you start to get to f. F a four, the bulk viscosity also doesn't change. Right. Like everything is pretty much a 15 w 40.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: So you're not seeing, let's say, for example, in passenger car, where, you know, some of the newer style lubricants might be a zero w 20, whereas once upon a time, they would have been a YouTube, you know, a 1040 or a 1030 or something like that. So you're not seeing that sort of bulk viscosity change now.
Okay, so that's. That's on the kind of like the. Just like standard oil size. But what about, um, what about some of, like, the newer technologies? Right? So, you know, I think everyone has seen the evolution of emissions controls. So we had egrs, dpfs, catalytic reduction.
Is there any kind of next layer to put on top of that? Because the diesel engine powertrain has gotten exceedingly complex from a maintenance standpoint.
Is there anything next?
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah, we're seeing higher compression ratios.
18 to one is kind of common, and we're starting to see some 24 to one compression ratios come in. Higher combustion temperatures taking care of the particulates at combustion.
Two def dosers. We're seeing them right after the turbocharger and then right before the SCR, and then we're hearing inklings of maybe two SCR's in the system when we get to 2024 and 2027 to handle the nox reduction that's required by the government.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. So if you do work in the trucking world, commiserations are getting more complex for you.
Now, that sort of brings up kind of like, I guess those technologies then drive a lot of the changes, or innovation, let's call it in the diesel engine oil space, because my analogy that I always give is basically that the. The government sets its targets, and then it tells the oems that they have to meet those targets. The oems come up with a range of technologies which will help them meet the targets, and then they show those technologies to the oil companies and say, make it work. Like, basically ensure that the oil does not destroy any of these and also enhances the reliability of the machine.
So, in that context, what does the future of CVL lubricants look like?
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. So, we just had a presentation at TMC on FA four oils, how to select the right oil or select the right oil for your fleet. And we had a really good turnout for the presentation, and a lot of magazines picked up the article and published it.
A lot of fleets aren't taking advantage of these lower viscosity oils and the allowance by the OEM to run these FA four oils and get another half to 1% fuel economy benefit over a ten w 30 ck four oil.
Some things that are coming in. You talked about next generation. So next generation is already here. We're already starting to develop these PC twelve oils. So again, we'll be a split category. So we'll have cl four and fb four will contain lower high temperature, high shear viscosity oils. Zero thirty s, five hundred and twenty s.
So far what we're hearing from the OEM is that the chemical box is going to stay the same. So zinc and phosphorus levels will probably stay the same as they are for CK four and FA four oils. And those additives there are, you know, decreased so that we can protect the after treatment system. The after treatment systems will have, will be warrantied and will be designed for a longer useful life compared to what they are now. So the government is setting a lot of standards around useful life of the after treatment system as well as knocks and particulate reduction.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Interesting. So I think the thing that's going to shock everyone is that you mentioned 520, which in this diesel engine oil world is pretty unheard of. Yeah.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: But its all around fuel economy.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. So maybe a question thats less technical and more kind of operational, how do you convince people to use those? Right. So maybe lets step back for a second.
FA four adoption has not been massive. Right.
The uptake has been relatively small and part of that's got to do with, I think, the fact that it's not a backward compatible standard unlike the CK four one is.
But even on top of that, my experience here in Australia, and we're a pretty conservative bunch of folks over here, is that even, let's say for example, european vehicles ship with, you know, a 1030 or in some cases maybe even a 530 factory fill.
They get over here and even the OEM representatives in the country, their first step is to drain the oil and replace it with a 1540.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Bigger is better.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And even, you know, I know in a previous generation it took us a long time to wean ourselves off straight SAE 40 and get everyone accustomed to using a 15 w 40. So in a very conservative industry, how do we sell the value of some of these low viscosity oils?
[00:25:09] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of it's doing total cost of ownership and showing the savings from a fuel economy standpoint and then doing the testing and showing the used oil analysis that the wear protection is there for these lower viscosity oils just like they are for the CK 415 40 oils. Most of the testing that's done now are done on the lower viscosity oils. And then they read back to the higher viscosity oils for the testing. So a lot of people don't understand that ten w all have to pass the same testing that a 15 w 40 oil has to pass. So if they don't pass those tests, they can't be API certified. So, you know, the whole thing about lower viscosity oils are going to wear my engines out quicker is a myth.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: So are we even going to get to the point where a 1540 becomes harmful to any of these engines? And the reason I'm asking this is because back to an earlier episode we had with lake speed from total seal piston rings. One of the things that he was highlighting in that episode was, you know, people are substituting, you know, what's the. Once the viscosity difference gets big enough, you know, people substituting, let's say, for example, a 00:20 this is in the passenger car world, right? A 00:20 for something like a 1040 under the guise of, well, thicker must be better. What they're finding is that the wear rates can often increase because, you know, what people are not taking into account is the that sort of interaction between ring tension, cylinder finish, or your bore finish, and the thickness of the lubricant film that is required on the wall.
So we're going to get to the point now where there's enough differentiation between a 520 or a 530 and a 1540 that, in fact, let's say, for example, potentially the OEM will not warranty a 1540 being put in the wrong engine.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're going to see a lot of oems try to, say, ten w 30 or lower viscosity in the engines. I don't think they're going to be able to completely eliminate 1540s, but customers need to understand, just like your ring story, when that oil is cold, it's not getting to all of the critical parts as quickly as a ten w 30 or a five w 30 or a zero w 30 would get to at startup. And that's where you see that boundary lubrication and that we're starting in the top end as well as in the ring and liner interface.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Maybe another thing to highlight as well would be the perception, at least from a formulation standpoint, is when you're reducing the viscosity and therefore kind of the load carrying capability of the base oil, that the additive package then needs to pick up a little bit more of the slack and do a little bit more of the work.
Now, you've also talked about the fact that in PC twelve, we're going to be down treating on some of the phosphorus and zinc, potentially.
So what are the assurances that we can give that the additive technology has also kept up with kind of the needs of modern engines where youre talking about higher compression ratios, higher temperatures, bigger loads. So how do we square that circle with fleet operators?
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean zinc and phosphorus are fantastic anti wear additives, but theyre not the only ones. Boron molybdenum.
These also can be used as any wear additives and are currently being used to take up the slack. So those additives there don't harm the after treatment systems in the SCR, like a zinc and phosphorus can poison a catalyst.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. And last question would be do you see any kind of move? So this is the engine oil world. You know, traditionally most diesel engine oils on the market at least have been group two, maybe group two and a little bit of group three sort of formulations.
As we start to lower the viscosity and extend oil drains. Does that push us in the direction of synthetics or is that still unnecessary?
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're going to see more semi synthetics and more full synthetics out there. When we get to PC twelve, that would be the way that they'll be able to get to those lower viscosities. And then on the driveline side, we're seeing lower viscosities there as well to capture the fuel economy benefit.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really interesting. So I'd seen a bunch of testing actually back from the mobile days where it was the full synthetic system, um, had, you know, could make meaningful improvements to fuel economy. Um, is that pretty widely adopted?
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, definitely, uh, factory fill. We're seeing uh, seventy five, eighty. Seventy five, eighty five s and then we're seeing um, you know, 50 weights were the typical transmission fluid. Now we're seeing forties and thirties. Uh, and these transmissions are still getting the same kind of mileage that they were in the past.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Well uh, Paul, I really appreciate your time and your insight. Um, you know, I think people are going to have um, a lot of interest in that, sort of like PC twelve. Um, because you know, when, when you're sitting outside of the room, uh, sometimes it can be a little bit nerve, nerve wracking to understand what's coming down. And especially if you're a fleet operator, you've seen the PC eleven changes, PC twelve is coming, so it's been really good to get some insight into that. So thank you for sharing your knowledge and I'll have to get you back again soon.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot rafe. Really appreciate it.
