There are two parts to every oil change – replacing the engine oil, and replacing the filter. Extending oil drain intervals requires both the oil and the filter have the ability to last longer. Todd Krzycki, director of heavy duty engineering for Luber-finer, shares insights on changes in filtration when it comes to extending oil drain intervals on heavy duty vehicles.
Transcription of interview:
Erica Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Welcome to VSP News: Uptime Update. I am your host , Erica Schueller, Editor-in-Chief of Fleet Maintenance magazine, which covers all maintenance, all vehicle classes, all management, all the time.
When it comes to quintessential preventative maintenance duties, oil changes are one of the top items that likely come to mind. It is important to note, there are two parts to every oil change: replacing the engine oil, and replacing the filter. Extending oil drain intervals requires both longer lasting oils and the filters.
Todd Krzycki, director of heavy duty engineering for Luber-finer, shared insights on the changes in filtration when it comes to extending oil drain intervals on heavy duty vehicles.
First, we covered the current challenges fleets face when it comes to oil changes for commercial vehicles, and how fleets are working to optimize change intervals to increase vehicle uptime.
Todd Krzycki, Luber-finer: When it comes down change intervals, the biggest thing is everybody wants to go a little bit longer between changes. Most OEs don’t recommend you go over a certain mileage marker, but every time your truck is down its money you’re losing.
What the goal is, is to almost extend it just a little bit more to that next change interval.
So, if you change your oil filter, air filter, fuel filter at certain mileage markers, maybe we can move out the oil and fuel a little bit closer to the where the air filter is, so you bring down your truck only once instead of multiple times.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Krzycki says there are some benefits and additional considerations when it comes to extending oil drain intervals.
Krzycki, Luber-finer: The benefits, when it comes to extending oil intervals, is you don’t have to take the truck down. That’s the biggest thing.
When you start to get to a point where you’re extending the intervals between fluid changes, you have to start to worry about components that wear out. Wear components are gaskets, O-rings, anything rubber, adhesives, things like that. You have to start to look at those components for longer intervals to make sure they don’t degrade over a certain time.
Temperature requirements, those are all things we have to start looking at when we start to extend the intervals.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: To address these concerns, the technology in filters has changed. Filter media and components have been updated to withstand longer change intervals. Krzycki explains more.
Krzycki, Luber-finer: When it comes to longer change intervals, the big things are the gaskets, O-rings. The older versions usually had a nitrile or a Buna type O-ring and gaskets. We’ve gone to silicone when we go to longer draining intervals, that lets you go a longer time without the degradation of the components.
As far as media, we’ll go with full synthetic media with a backing, almost like a wire mesh, to hold onto its form for a longer time. This helps prevent the media from degrading and collapsing on itself.
So, we’ll go to full synthetic and silicone components, that’s how you get to your longer intervals.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: There has been some confusion regarding heavy duty oil filtration with the increased adoption of extended oil change intervals. To address this Krzycki recommends an oil analysis program for fleets.
Krzycki, Luber-finer: It always is a little bit of a worry. You have to start looking at how the oil analysis is working. When you go longer, usually your oil will break down faster than what your filter will. If you go a longer interval, not only do you have to worry about the filter, you have to worry about the oil.
We recommend an oil analysis program, if you’re going to extend your oil change interval, to make sure you see how the oil is reacting as it breaks down over time.
The oil filter is only going to be doing so much, it’s really the oil that worries us the most.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: What continuing trends can we anticipate with regards to extended service intervals and filtration technology in the future? Krzycki shares more.
Krzycki, Luber-finer: As oils get better, we’ve seen it go from standard weight oils all the way to synthetics – full-synthetics, semi-synthetics – things like that.
You’ll start to see the oil last a lot longer, so you’re going to want to go longer. You’re not going to want to change that oil as often, because it is more extensive. You’ll want a filter that’s able to withstand that longer oil drain interval.
What we’ve been looking at is all the different components, not only going to silicone and wire back and synthetic medias, but we’re looking at going to the next step. How long can we go, so we never let the filter go before the oil.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: To learn more about extended life oil filters, please go to the link below.
That’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you for tuning in to VSP News , Uptime Update. I’m your host , Erica Schueller.
Until our next broadcast, keep up with this, and other industry topics, by visiting us online at VehicleServicePros.com.
Learn more about extended oil life filters.
