Choosing the right hgv transmission oil

While choosing the engine oil for your HGV vehicle is very important for running the engine, the same can be said for your driveline lubricants. The driveline is an essential element of any vehicle; it converts the power and energy created in the engine and transfers this to the rotation of the wheels that drive the vehicle. It is therefore essential to maintain your driveline to the best of its ability preventing as much wear and tear on the moving components as possible through lubrication to ensure your truck is exploiting the full potential of the power generated in the engine.

The driveline consists of two main components, the gearbox and the axles and lubrication of both elements is very important to their upkeep. There are many different types of lubricants for the driveline some dedicated gearbox oils, some dedicated axle oils, and some dual-purpose oils for both the gearbox and axles. And of course, within each element there are many different manufacturers and types that require different oil properties. Take for instance the gearbox in a truck there are three main types:

• Manual – Well known traditional gearbox requiring a manual operated clutch and gearstick to shift between each gear.
• Automated Manual – Similar internal operation to a manual but shift with computer-controlled actuators removing the requirement for a clutch. Eaton & Volvo I-Shift are examples of this.
• Automatic – Fully automatic gearbox that controls the full movement of the gearbox without input from the operator. Allison is the most used manufacturer for this type.

Each type of gearbox has specific oil requirements with different friction modifiers, anti-wear additives and different corrosion protection additives and that’s before you drill down to look at the different types of each transmission from different manufacturers and their specific requirements. Therefore, it’s very important to ensure you follow the manufacturers recommendations and approvals when choosing the right gear oil for your fleet for performance and warranty protection.

In addition to this most gearboxes or axles now allow for extra long drain intervals when synthetic oils are used, 200,000KM – 300,000KM, so the oils required need to be top quality well tested fully synthetic oils with robust sheer stability to continue to offer the protection required for longer than these intervals. Using lower quality cheaper oils for these types of intervals can be detrimental to your driveline, degradation of these fluids due to use beyond their limits can lead to failure of components of the driveline.

Whilst fully synthetic oils can be more expensive to purchase compared to mineral and semi-synthetic oils. Their benefits mean they work out the same or cheaper for users due to less oil changes, resulting in less maintenance costs and waste oil disposal. Fully synthetic oils also provide for more efficient drivelines that translate into proven fuel economy savings. When coupled with a fuel economy engine oil this can translate into up to 3% fuel usage reductions.

When choosing the correct oils for your driveline it is important to look for OEM fully approved products as these will have been tested to the extreme by the manufacturers to ensure they outperform their requirements. They will state clearly on the product and specification sheet that they are Approved by/for Manufacture ‘X’ specification.

Avoid where possible products with marketing jargon which may make you think the product is fully approved, such as:

• Product meets or exceeds manufacture ‘X’ requirements/approval
• Product is recommended for use where manufacture ‘X’ specification is required

Products with this type of Jargon are generally a cheaper option to the approved products and in some cases may perform ok, but most are blended to the min requirements of the specification and so are not as reliable for the optimal performance and drain intervals that approved and tested oils can be relied for.

Finol Oils are one of Ireland’s leading and trusted approved oils distributors offers a range of fully approved transmission and gear oils from TotalEnergies & Petro Canada to suit most fleet operators’ requirements. Three key products for mix fleet operators that Finol can offer are:

TotalEnergies’ Traxium Dual 9 FE 75W-90 is a high-performance synthetic lubricant of particular benefit to multi brand fleet operators due to its high number of OEM axle and gear box approvals allowing operators to hold one product suitable for use in most of their fleet’s axles & gearboxes.

TotalEnergies’ Traxium Gear 9 FE 75W80 is a high-performance synthetic lubricant specially developed for the severe requirements of ZF, Man & Volvo gearboxes in HGVs.

Petro Canada’s Duradrive HD Synthetic 668 is now the factory fill for Alison Automatic Gearboxes. This product holds the new Allison Approval TES 668 which supersedes TES 295 so can be used in new and old Alison Automatic Gearboxes.

These are just three key HGV products from a large range of fully approved transmission and gear oils available from us who operate throughout the island of Ireland with a network of sales & delivery teams nationwide. To talk to Finol today about your driveline requirements call our technical team at 01 4555484.