The American Petroleum Institute (API) in 2016 introduced the FA-4 performance category for heavy- duty engine oils, in addition to the more conventional CK-4 category. The split in the category covered low-viscosity lubricants designed for new-model engines that Lubrizol testing has shown that fuel economy gains up to 2% are achievable.
Adoption of FA-4 lubricants to-date remains low. If you’re reading this, it’s more likely than not you’re servicing your trucks with CK-4 lubricants. You probably have reasons for doing so, or perhaps you simply haven’t considered making such a change to your regular maintenance program.
But for today’s commercial trucking fleets, maintaining efficient and competitive operations requires investigating every potential advantage you can find. FA-4 represents a good opportunity for fleets operating a majority of new trucks to seize significant operational benefits, and it’s worth your renewed consideration.
In the past five years, our testing has shown that FA-4 certified lubricants are applicable for use in most engines newer than model-year 2010. And since 2016, an increasing number of newer-than-model-year-2010 engines have proliferated in fleets and across North American highways, including, in all likelihood, yours.
Composition of fleets has been one of the hurdles toward widespread adoption. Being able to service an entire fleet with CK-4 lubricants presents some potential operational efficiencies over servicing certain vehicles with one type of oil and others with another, especially for a fleet with only a few that can be serviced with FA-4. The benefits of selecting FA-4 where applicable may outweigh any potential downsides as older trucks continue to age out of the vehicle population and an increasing number of newer-model vehicles are brought into service.
