Changing tack?

Contracting out servicing comes hard to truck operators who run their own workshops. Letting loyal employees go, and giving the task to the local franchised dealer has become progressively more tempting as the complexity of vehicles, and the rigours of compliance, have grown. Look deeper, and more operators could be tempted to go for contract hire and relinquish ownership of the trucks, taking them off balance sheet.

Des Evans, MAN Truck and Bus CEO in the UK, is taking the process a stage further by selling hauliers kilometres, leaving them to provide just drivers and diesel. He tells IFW: ‘We have a contract with Shell, via Hoyer, for their tanker fleet. We are contracted to supply them one million kilometres of transport on each of 139 tractor units over five years. They needed costs they could put a lid on, so we gave them a ppk (pence per kilometre) rate to cover the entire provision, apart from diesel and drivers.’ That’s a tempting offer, particularly when penalty clauses against the manufacturer, for non-provision against a service level agreement, are included.

Self-policing

We suspect that Evans, ever the canny salesman, is attempting to ride the wave of worry over technology that surrounds progressive emissions legislation. He admits that Euro6 is not complicated, referring to it as ‘A breath of fresh air.’ But there are additional issues to bear in mind for servicing.

SCR-based systems (selective catalytic reduction) with their associated AdBlue additive tanks are one, and MAN now uses SCR in conjunction with its established EGR (exhaust gas recirculation emissions control technology), which will need a DPF (diesel particulate filter). Car fleet managers would do well to pay attention here, as the issues surrounding DPFs will land on their mat too, as increasing numbers of high-performance diesel cars hit the roads.

Depending on duty cycle – a major influence on service requirements – DPFs will need specialist cleaning. To avoid putting a truck out of service, some operators would be well advised to acquire a few spare filters to use, on a service exchange basis. An unbolt and bolt-on process can be integrated into a planned maintenance schedule, rather than incurring expensive down time.

Filter cleaning is currently a specialist job, but large fleets could decide to invest in a cleaning system and be independent.

For truck drivers who ignore the warning lights, OBD (on board diagnostics) would intervene. After 36 hours of non-compliant running (during which time your OCRS (operator compliance risk score) would be in jeopardy), engine torque would be reduced, and after 64 hours a forced speed reduction to 20km/h would effectively strand the vehicle.

Duty cycles will be a critical element here. Urban work for trucks and buses, and for cars that are driven at low revs for economy, will ironically pay the price by getting the DPF clogged, and bring on the “clean me” light first.

SCR convert

They say that there are none so righteous as the recently converted. MAN’s Euro 6 statement claims to have been field-testing SCR since 1995, when Euro2 had only just been introduced. In any event, the industry trend seems to be shunning EGR. Iveco is refusing to use it at all, on the grounds of higher operating temperatures and fears about engine longevity. Renault’s new truck range uses an “EGR Lite”, which only functions while the engine is getting up to operating temperature. Renault Trucks’ vice president Thierry Hours, conceded that EGR was only being tolerated as a necessary evil, until SCR systems have been further refined. Watching the trend develop among the major manufacturers will be interesting.