Scania to focus on maintenance offering and Euro 6

Truckmaker aims to use technological advances to give more customer specific attention to vehicles

 

Scania will focus efforts next year on refining its maintenance and services offerings while evaluating its various Euro 6 engines in Australian conditions.

Henrik Fagrenius, Scania’s senior vice president, commercial operations and head of region Africa, Asia and Oceania, says the truckmaker’s maintenance regime will examine vehicle application and truck-sourced technological data to define timing and work, rather than stick to rigid distance- or time-frames.

The company believes it C200 on-board ‘black box’ communications technology and telematics, along with advances in oils and other lubricants, will allow greater flexibility and precision in what it calls ‘condition-based maintenance’ (CBM) – a “customer-specific” integration of service, repair and maintenance functions, including preventive maintenance.

“We should use the technology on the vehicle so we don’t over-service and don’t underservice,” Scania Australia managing director Roger McCarthy says, adding that this would be done with customer agreement as the data belongs to customers.

McCarthy admits Euro 6 technology comes at a premium of more than $15,000 or more per unit for general fleet use and will be evaluated with “key clients” over the next 12-18 months.

While those with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and exhaust gas reticulation (EGR) are already in service with some customers, notably TNT, SCR-only versions are available for order and are likely to appear next year.

McCarthy expects fuel savings to help the Euro 6’s attractiveness.

“What we are seeing in Europe is that the fuel consumption performance with the Euro 6 engine is, in many applications, better than with Euro 5,” he says, noting that over a five-year run, that capital premium can be expected to be “eradicated”.

Fagrenius, who was in charge of setting up Scania’s presence in India, discounts for now progress by Indian, Korean and Chinese makes, including Tata-Daewoo and Hyundai, as being a threat to Scania’s Australian market share in the next five years.

“I think that is very much up to how they manage to develop their driveline, the integrated driveline with the engine, the gearbox and the axles,” he says.

“Because we are in the business of and we have professional customers and uptime and fuel consumption is very, very important for our customers.

“We know that that development takes a lot of time.”

This holds for the move from Euro 5 to Euro 6 and the need for investment and testing

“But you should be humble enough to see that competitors have come more quickly than in the past than perhaps we’d have thought,” Fagrenius says.

He is confident that with a third set of Euro 6 engines on the market, the move of South Korea to Euro 6 on January 1 and Tata Daewoo’s September plunge into it through Case New Holland and Fiat Powertrain.

“It needs to be tested in the market to see how it is performing,” he says.

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