WORKSHOP A bout 18 months ago Safeway fleet engineer Rod Haswell set up a
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service trial of Groeneveld's Oilmaster engine oil monitoring system, installing large numbers of Oi!masters across the fleet (CM26 Aug-1Sept 1999).
To date the device is fitted to 510 V and W-reg models among the company's 700-plus tractive units. The fleet is dominated by Scanias but Oilmasters have also been fitted to 55 new Volvo FM12 3405 and a new Cummins-engined yard shunter.
Every three months the half-litre units of oil issued to each vehicle are reviewed by their Oilmaster systems. Quantities are logged against the distance covered to produce a consumption figure across the whale fleet.
Most of the Oilmaster-equipped antics have completed only half of their intended three-year lease spell, but the 220 vehicles involved from the start seem to have cut Safeway's annual £215,000 spending on engine oil by more than 25%.
Managing engine oil top-ups has eliminated overfilling, and those old problems of blown oil seals, oil dilution and excessive wear.
Colin Jones, Groeneveld's SouthEast sales manager, points out that modern diesel engines tend to drain slowly. Many of the latest overhead
cam, four-valves-per-cylinder engines hold more oil in their upper sections, for much longer periods. Readings are taken on Scania's 13-litre engines at the 30-minute drain point but the Volvos, which are programmed differently, can take up to four hours.
"It needs judging very carefully" says Jones. "We have to be certain that the vehicles are indeed stationary and the engines are switched off for that period."
Cool down
Safeway vehicles rarely cool down; they're double-shifted so if a driver were to check the engine oil in the usual way it wouldn't give a true reading on the dipstick. Before Oilmaster was installed he'd have topped it up with one or two litres, then when it settled down he'd find that he'd over-filled the engine. What wasn't burned away would cause back pressure, could damage seals and might even affect the clutch.
A major benefit of Oilmaster is that the larger 12.6-litre reservoir allows the vehicles to go from one six-week ministry inspection to the next without having to worry about the oil level.
Drivers still keep an eye on the system's in-cab warning light; a flash could mean a failure, and if the tank level is low he takes it to the VMU (vehicle maintenance unit) for atop-up. He also dips the engine as normal but the filler is sealed—the mechanic adds the oil. But, considering the close control of each vehicle's oil usage, Scania's acknowledged engineering ability and the high-quality BP/Mobil lubricants that are used, Haswell and Jones are bewildered by the lack of any pattern of oil consumption.
"It's the same across all the depots but, whereas the 55 new Volvos deliver 3,000km/lit of oil, and their oil usage is fairly consistent, the higher mileage V and W-reg Scanias are on 6,200km/lit yet their oil intake is extremely erratic," says Haswell. And there's no evidence of a bedding-in period: one engine will use nothing from day one; the next one uses less as it starts to bed in; while others remain regular all the way through their life.
One difficulty with Scania engines is pinpointing the exact settlement level between high and low on the dipstick. "Ideally, it's midway," says Jones. But on other makes he's found that dipstick lengths vary by as much as 30mm between engines in the same series.
Despite the lack of a consumption pattern, Haswell is particularly impressed by Scania's 11-litre 3-Series engine, which he feels is ideally suited to fully synthetic oil. Some of the firm's test units have done well over 500,000km on the same oil. "On stripdown we found little or no wear," he says. "They were as clean as a whistle."
With the change to the latest engine series with its electronic fuel injection Safeway has switched to BP Vanellus HT semi-synthetic engine oil, but the fleet is still achieving the 120,000km between oil changes requested by Scania. In the days of fully synthetics engine oil was sampled at half-life, but nowadays sampling is random.
Safeway's environmental mission statement is to "operate in harmony with the global environment and practise environmental protection as an integral part of its business". The logistics management policy seeks to manage emissions while optimising the use of resources and minimising noise disturbance during deliveries.
Curfew hours
Something that would make an impact, says Haswell, would be to work during store curfew hours. "That way we could get rid of 160 adios at a stroke," he points out. Given that more than 50% of Safeway's stores are affected by delivery curfews, anything that cuts noise is a further benefit. As well as avoiding unnecessary top-ups, Haswell believes that Oilmaster has tremendous management potential.
Its information can be integrated within the vast amount of data already being downloaded via engine and chassis management systems and, supported by the periodic diesel diagnostic figures, extremely high fleet engineering standards can be achieved_ "Logically we can use Groeneveld's lubricant management system for stock control," he says. "That way we could accurately predict exactly how much oil we may need over a period, almost to the litre — information that many a fleet owner or manager would be delighted to have at his fingertips."
• Groeneveld also offers Oilmaster systems with 6.01it reservoirs for medium to heavy vans and light trucks, and a 12.511t version for off-roaclers and static engines.
• by Bryan Jarvis