Extending engine life with enhanced maintenance
Engine maintenance solutions provider BG Products has highlighted the potential benefits to fleets of going above and beyond standard engine upkeep procedures in terms of lower emissions, reduced fuel costs and prolonged engine life.
“Enhanced maintenance is a low cost solution to the challenges that commercial vehicles face,” said the company.
“Standard maintenance is fine if you want to keep the vehicle for three years but if you want to make the asset last then it is undeniable that you need more than standard maintenance – as several large fleets are experiencing.
“Everybody accepts that clean engines run better. There is a direct correlation between engine cleanliness and oil quality and the longevity of that engine.”
The company continued: “When a standard regime is followed we see what happens inside an engine and the knock-on effect of the inevitable deposits that are produced by the combustion process. We see that, very quickly, the oil gets dirty from soot.
“Whilst this soot is observed, the repercussions of soot is not always recognised. Soot is both a side effect and a cause of wear in engine components. Soot is carbon; carbon is one of the hardest known substances. Its presence in oil, where it has a tendency to connect to other soot particles to make bigger soot particles, is like having a liquid emery paper flowing around the engine.”
The soot is a by-product of combustion, which is impossible to stop altogether, says BG; but it can be reduced dramatically.
“Very quickly soot attaches itself to several key components, most damagingly… deposits on the fuel injectors and the piston rings,” said the firm.
“When soot attaches to or inside an injector this interferes with the atomisation of the injector causing inefficient combustion, and more soot. When soot and degraded oil get behind the piston rings it restricts the rings ability to flex and centre. This means that the seal is compromised and leads, very quickly, to two other effects – lost compression and more oil combustion.
“Lost compression also means compromised combustion and consequently more soot – and so the vicious circle carries on.”
An underappreciated but major cause of diesel particulate filter (DPF) decline is the impact of oil seeping past the rings, combusting and then depositing metals such as zinc, calcium, magnesium and others onto the DPF (even with Low SAPS oils), says BG Products.
“These metal elements effect the efficiency, and shorten the life, of the DPF.
“DPF life is extended when combustion is optimised. Restoring compression means less soot is produced and the DPF is required to do less regenerations.
“Deposits on injectors have a more instant effect on initiating the ‘vicious circle’.”
Deposits on injectors form relatively quickly in a modern engine, says BG, and the effect is compounded by the much tighter specifications of an injector, with its ever decreasing aperture size.
“Deposits in, or on, the injector interfere with the spray atomisation making it harder for optimum combustion. This leaves even more deposits, less MPG and fuel dilution of the oil – which has its own knock-on effects on the oils ability to lubricate effectively.”
The damaging soot created by engines will shorten engine and component life, says BG Products; oil viscosity is compromised by soot and fuel dilution and the engine is no longer protected as well as it should be.
“Standard servicing does not, and cannot, remove deposits,” said the company.
“Enhanced maintenance means periodically, usually at a scheduled service, removing those deposits and as such interrupts the vicious circle, leading back to an efficient engine with low emissions and restored power/economy.”
According to BG Products, the key components of enhanced maintenance are:
1. Service interval injector and fuel system cleaning to restore accurate fuel delivery.
2. Engine cleaning (pre-oil change) to free piston rings, restore compression and reduce blow-by.
3. Oil supplementation to help control soot agglomeration, control acid formation and to maintain viscosity for longer.
The firm says its pour-in solutions mean the regime does not require any additional labour time.
Among the organisations and sectors that have utilised enhanced maintenance, which BG Products says have seen clear benefits in terms of component and vehicle longevity, are Norse (a supplier of vehicle services, including refuse lorries and road sweepers, to various councils); Bristol Ambulance Services; London Hire (a national minibus hire company); and Post Office Mobile Offices.
