Want to know about the effects of a particular lubricant formulation on a truck engine, Shell engineer Howard Hill, the company's North American field trial coordinator, is the man to see. But be careful: He just might convince you he has the greatest job in the world and you'll soon find yourself shopping for some coveralls.
Shell is currently performing real-world tests on next-generation, PC-11b candidate oils to find out if the low viscosity high-temp/high-shear (HTHS) formulations designed for tomorrow's engines are backwards compatible with older equipment. The goal for Shell is to provide fleet customers one product that will protect engines built from 2007 forward, including the latest diesels tuned for maximum fuel efficiency.
Hill walks us though a teardown from the test fleet, done at a dealer's shop in San Antonio last week.
