Scheduled Oil Sampling: The Value of Fluid Analysis
Have you already experienced the difference that planned equipment maintenance makes to your fleet performance, and are you committed to improving your practices? Then, this is for you.
Who Needs Scheduled Oil Sampling?
If you think the answer is obvious – everyone needs scheduled oil sampling – think again.
You don’t need an advanced degree in chemistry to take advantage of your oil, coolant or fuel sampling results. Cat Scheduled Oil Sampling service, also known as S·O·S provides knowledgeable interpretations and recommendations you can actually understand—and act on.
You’ll find some updates, important points and useful reminders about the role and the appropriate implementation of scheduled oil sampling analysis.
Unless you are committed to a disciplined, consistent regimen, adhering to the process, regularly following up and acting on the results, scheduled oil sampling can be a waste of money and time, giving you an illusion of proper maintenance but not providing any real value.
Let’s start by defining scheduled oil sampling as a program that allows you to get an insight into the health of your machine by collecting, analyzing and interpreting small amounts of oil and other fluids stored in the cavities of the components in your machine, including the engine, powertrain, fuel, hydraulics, braking and coolant system.Scheduled Oil Sampling is one of several important practices that can be used to support your decision-making when it comes to maintenance, helping you lower your owning and operating costs, maximizing component life and optimizing your investment.
Others include:
- Cutting and inspecting filters and looking for debris that may not appear in oil sampling.
- Keeping track of hours on components.
- Monitoring performance – paying attention to power, slippage, and excessive oil consumption.
- Monitoring tell-tale physical warning signs such as smoke and leaking components.
Used together, all those activities will help you determine why a machine is functioning the way it is and can support your follow-up steps to maintain its current performance or to improve it.
"If we have dirt entry and metal wear in the oil, we can do a repair or reseal for $7,000.
A failure can cost $25,000. That’s a continuous savings for us.”
John Meese - Waste Management, Senior Director of Heavy Equipment
7 Mistakes to Avoid with Scheduled Oil Sampling:
- Focusing on the condition of the oil and not on what the oil is telling you about the machine. Whoever is testing and reporting on your oil should know about equipment, not just about oil.
- Forgetting that to be effective, sampling must be a program. One sample only provides a snapshot of that moment versus a history from which trends can be established. Trending, when negatively, can tell you when there is a problem, and when positively, can indicate that a problem has been fixed.
- Sampling from a dirty port or re-using contaminated test equipment. Remember the old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out?” If your sample has particles of foreign substances that come not from the oil itself but from around the port, the data from the sampling will be flawed. Similarly, re-using the same sampling tube when going from a coolant sample to an oil sample will give false indications of fluid transfer like a head gasket leaking coolant into the engine oil.
- Sampling from a cold engine. You need a warm sample from a machine that has been run; a cold sample is not representative and can give you faulty information.
- Labeling sample containers with incorrect information.
- Not considering other relevant machine information, like your machine’s operating environment.
- No action on the data you collect. This is a very common mistake and carries the worst consequences. Scheduled Oil Sampling provides you with a very useful bank of information regarding your machine’s overall health, but unless you take the time to look at the data and use what you learn to guide your maintenance decision-making, you are just wasting your resources.
In closing, let’s emphasize again that Scheduled Oil Sampling is an important information tool that can support your maintenance decision-making. It isn’t magic, it doesn’t work when used without the other available tools, and it is not to be seen as a standalone operation to be done once when you have an issue – but as a program.