Shell Rotella Fleet Newsletter

Title: From Cold Starts to Hot Runs: The Science of Engine Oils with Shell Rotella's Karin Haumann

Duration: 27 minutes 53 second

[Video Starts]

Did I ever learn a lot today?

With our guests, Karin Haumann from Shell Rotella.

And we're talking about engine lubricants and I knew nothing.

It's a great interview.

You've got to join us.

Karin is next.

Welcome to the Trekking Risk and Insurance Podcast.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Hey, welcome back to the trucking risk

and insurance podcast, where our guest today is Karin Haumann, and she is all

going to talk to us about lubrication.

Now, what could we possibly need to lubricate when it comes to the

trucking industry other than our minds?

Well, we're going to talk about.

Essential lubrication that you need to keep your engine going.

Karin, welcome to the show.

How are

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: you today?

I'm good.

Thanks for having me.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Cool.

This is going to be kind of fun because I know nothing

about oils and stuff like that.

Johnny's got some experience, but Karin, can you first introduce yourself?

Who do you work for and what's your background?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Sure.

I am the OEM technical manager for Shell Rotella, and I have been with

Shell for about 12 years, and I work to support our technology department

and R& D and communicate with customers and truck OEMs and basically act as

a product application specialist to make sure that everybody is selecting

the right products for their hardware.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: And you also come on to podcasts.

I do.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: I do.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Cool.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Do you get into, um, involved with the,

um, the testing, um, you know, when it comes to lubricants and oils and

whatnot for different environments?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: I do.

I'm pretty heavily involved both with Rotella internally in our, in our

product and development, research and development in the testing and

also at the industry level at the API, um, service category level.

Um, I'm the chair of the new category development team.

That's one thing that's exciting now going on is where the industry is,

is upgrading the minimum standard.

And I'm very heavily involved in that process.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Cool, cool.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: What do you mean by upgrading the standard?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: So your oil recommendation that you

get from your engine manufacturer is going to say API CK4, that's the

current standard, and that's just the specifications, the minimum performance

standards that they require for an oil that they recommend that you use in

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: your engine.

Okay.

See, I'm going to ask a bunch of these stupid questions because I really

don't understand anything about it.

But some of our guests may be the same as me, but anyway, Johnny, go ahead.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Well, I was just going to

say, let's, let's educate our listeners a little bit here.

Cause I know there's a lot of people that are go, they hear a lot about this

synthetic, full synthetic, semi synthetic.

What's, what's the difference between synthetic and the regular

oil we are just used to using?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Synthetic oil is, um, it's, it's the base oils

that we use, they're more highly refined and they have better protection, better

properties at extreme temperatures, both in the cold and the hot.

So everybody knows that your oil changes viscosity with the temperature.

When it heats up, it gets thinner.

When it's cold, it gets thick.

So, synthetic base oils are more temperature stable across

a range of temperatures.

So, it allows us to have more of a consistent environment for the oil to

operate in and offers higher protection.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Okay.

So, obviously that's going to be a big plus come cold startup

and stuff along that line.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Absolutely.

Cool.

Yeah, so the oil, your viscosity grade, you've got the two numbers, the xw,

and then the, you know, a 15 W 40.

Well, the first number tells you it's the winter number and it tells

you how, how pumpable it is at cold temperatures is really how that's defined.

So when you're cold and in the winter, you wanna.

The lowest number on that first number, 5W, 0W, then the oil is

more pumpable when it's cold.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: I was going to say, because that's something

that I use in my, I have a diesel engine in my Jeep, and I use either the 0W or

the 5W in my little diesel engine, which I know makes it a lot easier to pump and

get that thing to start in the mornings.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Yep, it's a lot easier on your starter

and your battery and your critical parts get lubricated faster.

Just better all around.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: How does it affect the trucks?

Um, we're, a lot of my customers, excuse me, are located up here

in the north and, but they do California or they, they run to Texas.

How does that affect things when the truck leaves, uh, the north and gets down into

the warmer, sunnier, I hope, climates?

If you've got a zero or a five, a Viscosity.

I can't even say the name.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Well that's where, that's where

the second number comes in.

So a 0W40 offers you protection at the widest range of temperatures.

The higher that second number is, the more viscosity control

we have at high temperatures.

So if you're running north to south, hot to cold consistently, you want

to have that, that widest range of temperature protection would be a 0W40.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Okay, can you say that one more time, because I

think that's really important if you're running from the cold temperatures

to the warm temperatures, what's the range of numbers you'd like to see?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: So the first number is the cold temperature, the lower

the better for cold, and the second number is hot temperature, the higher the better.

So, the wider the range of those numbers, 0W40 is the widest range, um,

will cover both ends of the spectrum and require, it requires synthetic

base oils to be able to accomplish both sides of the spectrum at the same time,

which is where your synthetic comes in.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Right.

So, they're better off running synthetic than, uh, typical oil.

There.

Okay.

See?

I'm learning.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: I was going to say one, one way

that might really help you, Chris, is if we took and, you know, at

minus 20 outside and we got a Mr.

Turtle pool with the zero 40 in it.

Right?

And then if we took another Mr.

Turtle Pool, and we put like 15 W40 in it, and then we let you swim in each one

of the, of the, of the baths of oil, and you could tell us which is slipperier

and uh, easier to move around in.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Oh, there.

Yep.

I'm not going outside of this.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: I'm sure

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: your wife commented that too.

You wouldn't be able to swim through the 0w40 faster, which is why

you'd have better, which is why it gives you a better fuel economy.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: There you go.

And your wife would probably, probably come up with a smart

ass comment for you, Chris.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Well, I was just thinking our listeners

and viewers really don't want to see me in a bathing suit at all.

Nor do they want to see me covered in oil.

It's just nowhere.

Anyway, so is it necessary, um, why, would I run 040 all year round

or is it necessary to better for the engine to be switching, uh,

sorry, you're shaking your head.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

No,

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: you can run, you can run it year round.

There's no, there's no detrimental effect.

It's just offering you protection at those extreme temperatures when

they occur and everything in between.

So you can run that year round.

No problem.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Cause of course you know up here, uh,

you being from, formerly from Cleveland, summers can get very hot.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Yeah.

Mm-Hmm.

. Mm-Hmm, . Cool.

I was gonna say an interesting fact.

So, and, and, and maybe you can help me to understand this.

So I have a classic car, 1975, uh, Buick, uh, gas engine.

And I have, uh, been informed long, long time ago to use a heavyweight.

Diesel style oil in it, uh, because of the old style lifters that

are in it and the old, you know, the old technology that's in it.

So I run, uh, Shell Rotella T1540 in that thing.

It doesn't run in the wintertime, obviously, uh, but I Will

I get better protection by utilizing, um, that grade of oil?

Why would that be?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: So over the years, uh, the engineers

and the car manufacturers, engine manufacturers have done a very good

job of engineering out a wear problem.

You know, we have more parts that roll instead of slide.

And 1975 old valve train, it's probably a flat tap at lots of sliding parts.

So also over the last decades we have refined and optimized our engine oils

and, um, the additive systems that have kind of grown with the new technologies.

And while they are backward compatible, we always make sure that when we

upgrade the standard, that there, we go to great lengths to make sure

it's backward compatible, you have more protection with a more heavily,

we call it heavily additized the, it's just got better anti wear.

More heavy duty anti wear protection for that older style hardware

that isn't, uh, designed, um, you know, as well to prevent wear.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Mm.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Yeah.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Absolutely.

I was gonna say, this is good.

Yeah, it's good to know, because I was going to say, you know, I think

there's a lot of people out there with classic cars to go, well, oil's oil,

you know, and I've always kind of said, it's not, it has its purposes, its

applications, and, you know, you need to do a little bit of research on it as

to where you should use what oils where.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: That's right.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Would you say the same thing for trucks?

I mean, we know that there's a lot of trucks running right

now that are older than 2000.

Because they don't want to go ELD.

Um, considerations for lubrication should those trucks be making

or those owners be making?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: So those trucks will already have

obviously a heavy duty diesel engine specification or recommendation.

Um, We always recommend that you look to your service manual to

see what, what viscosity grade that you should be running.

So typically the service manuals will have a kind of a mapped

out range of temperatures.

You know, if your ambient temperature is between this and this, you

need to use You know, 15w40.

And so it gives you a selection based on your operating conditions.

And those will also be in the older manuals.

And so we recommend that that you follow that because that was, that

recommendation was designed at the time that hardware was developed.

And so that's going to best match the design of the hardware you have.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: I hope all the people that are

running the older trucks listen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Read your owner's manual and I'm sure well, no, I mean, damn.

I, I drive a newer car and I've never read the owner's manual.

I mean, who, who does?

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Well, and I was going to say it's also

important for like, for a fleet that if you've got your own mechanic shop

and whatnot, um, that you understand what lubricants are required for

which vehicle and stuff like that.

So if you're running some older trucks, uh, and with a mix of

newer equipment, um, maybe one oil is not going to be the answer.

Maybe you need a couple of different viscosities there for the older

trucks and the newer trucks.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Yeah, I know that's always a sticking point with adding

complexity, having more than one oil.

If you've got if you've got multiple trucks and there's scenarios where

you can use kind of the least common denominator, but you want to make sure

that that you're picking the right one.

If you're going to You know, if you're going to err on one side, you want to make

sure that you're, you're, you're picking the right oil based on your hardware.

So it's always, it's always good to, to understand this.

Other things like, um, it affects your, could affect your oil

pressure because of the viscosity.

So depending on the way the oil pump was designed, you're older.

25, 30 year old engine may need a thicker oil to maintain that, that pressure.

That's why we just, we recommend that you use your, utilize the owner's manual.

I know nobody reads it, but I mean, and sometime, you know, over the

years, the engine manufacturers can, can update because oils.

Increased in, um, in quality over time.

So you do some research and maybe the engine original equipment manufacturer

has, um, kind of done a, a backward compatibility, backward compatible

recommendation that, you know, when your truck was manufactured

in 1995, we said use this, but now you can use, you know, Y instead.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Well, I was gonna say, that's where,

that's where it's good for, um, your maintenance team to be in.

conversation with those engine and vehicle manufacturers on a routine basis,

you know, to get those updates and know what they can and cannot use or what

they should and shouldn't be using.

Yep, that's right.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: That's exactly right.

And that's what we do at Shell.

That's my job is to, to help make sure that our customers are, are

clear on what, what should I be using?

You know, this is my situation.

This is where I'm at.

This is my hardware.

You know, what all do I use?

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so I was just going to say, so, cause a lot of companies,

um, are going to have an oil supplier cause they'll probably be

buying their, their oil in bulk.

So, You know, if you've got a mix of manufacturers and in your, in your

fleet, then hey, talk to your suppliers, uh, with your lubricants and oils,

they'll be able to also help you to understand which you should be using

for which vehicles or knowing that, oh, no, this one will do everything.

You'll be okay with this.

So, you know, having those conversations is going to be key.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Yeah, that's right.

We can help you if you have to have one oil for everything, we can help you find

that kind of least common denominator and help you understand what you're gaining

and what you're losing by doing that.

The fuel economy obviously is, is top of mind now.

And you know, the thinner the oil, the better the fuel economy.

And if that's the end all be all, then kind of go over what the,

what the pros and cons are and help you decide what's best for your.

Particular situation.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Sure, sure.

Can you answer a question because, and I really don't know how to say

it, but what, what's the difference between synthetic oil and oil and

whether it applies to cars or trucks?

Um, you're more in trucks, I would believe, but, uh, what is, is there an

advantage, I guess, to using synthetic?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: So synthetic oil.

Just means that the base oil, so oil consists of the base oil, the

hydrocarbon plus, um, chemistry that helps with anti wear, anti oxidation,

and all of the additive chemistry.

So, you know, you're probably about 75 percent of the oil is base oil.

And when we say synthetic oil, we're talking about oils that are more base

oils that are more highly refined.

And so, you know, the molecules are more uniformly shaped is, is

why they, why it performs better.

And I've got a really good visual.

I don't have it here.

I wish I could, I wish I had it here.

But if you take a, if you imagine a picture of ball bearings, pile

ball bearings, And a picture of the same pile of gravel.

You could say the gravel represents the conventional oil and the ball bearings

represent the the synthetic oil.

So you can kind of think of that that's what I mean when

I say more highly refined.

So it just performs better.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: And that's a great visual and it also

answers, in my mind at least, a second question as to why Synthetic is often

priced higher and you've answered that because it's, it's more refined.

You've put more work into it to make those molecules all the same size so

that it works better in the engine.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: That's right.

And we just have more control with the chemistry over something that's

more uniformly shaped molecularly.

And I'm, I'm not a chemist and so I I stay in LA and I'm a mechanical engineer.

So I have to be careful.

I can give you my dumb mechanical engineer explanation for how these things

work, but, um, there is a chemical, you know, component to it that we have some

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: people

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: that know.

I liked your visual of the bearings of the ball bearings and the rocks.

I understood that.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Yeah.

That's my mechanical engineers version of how they're different

chemically, because I'm not a chemist.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: I like that.

I like that.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: So, yeah.

It was visual and it was simple enough for me to understand, which,

you know, hopefully the rest of the audience, uh, is a lot smarter than

me and, you know, made it easy.

I

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: got it.

It was good.

Yep.

I followed you, Chris.

I thought it was good.

So, yeah.

So, yeah.

So, so why are we seeing continuous evolvement in oil specifications?

Why isn't it just, you know what manufacturers, here's

your oil, live with it.

Deal with it.

Move on.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Well, that's primarily driven by

federal regulations and pressures that the engine manufacturers have

on reducing emission requirements.

And so, we at Shell work very closely with the big engine manufacturers and

we Kind of co develop the oil and the new engine hardware at the same time.

So they're having to do different hardware designs in order to

accomplish these emission reductions.

And that requires performance changes of the oil.

So for example, um, if they want to, and this is just a very generic example, I'm.

I'm just coming up with, if they want to lower the viscosity to get better fuel

economy, then they could perhaps heat the oil up and make the operating temperature

of the oil, because we know that as oil gets hotter, it gets thinner, so they can

control the viscosity with temperature and they can say, hey, I want to crank up

my operating temperature by 10 degrees.

Well, if you do that to the oil, oil oxidizes and gets thick based on time

and temperature, so they may come to us and say, can you give me something

that's more, uh, Stable to allow me to increase my temperatures, or they may

say, um, can you give me something that's more oxidatively stable so that I can

offer my customer longer oil draining?

So we work with them to facilitate the changes that they need to

make to accomplish their goals by increasing the performance of the oil.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: One thing I've noticed a lot is Oil

changes have gotten many more, many more miles or kilometers in

between changes over the years.

And that talks to what you were just saying, doesn't it?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: That's a function of two things.

Engine design, um, and So an engine manufacturer can, can design their engine

to be a little less harsh on the oil.

And we as oil suppliers can, you know, use our, our chemistry and our things

that we're doing for improvements to make oil last longer in a harsh environment.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: See, I'm learning so much today, but, you know,

and I'm being a little silly about it, but this is all stuff that I've

had no idea about, um, and I'm old.

This has been great.

Yeah.

What else, Karin, what else did we need to discuss about Shell Rotilla?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Well, we've got a great line of synthetic

blend and full synthetic products are T6.

You're talking about being up north and having a wide range of operating

conditions with respect to temperature.

So we've got full synthetic 10W30s and full synthetic T6 1540 if you want

the full synthetic, but you still want or need that higher viscosity grade.

So that's kind of the best of both worlds.

We've got the Rotella T6 5W 40 and 0W 40 also.

So there's, there's something for every, um, every condition out

there in the Rotella line for sure.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: Well, and I believe Shell makes oils for

other than just engine usage as well.

Gear oils, uh, other types of lubricants, greases and stuff like that as well.

Do they not?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Yeah, absolutely.

Coolants.

Um, I'm not, uh, you know, that's not in my wheelhouse, so I don't really,

I don't really know, you know, all the details on that stuff, but yeah, totally

all of our fluids, the cover, the gamut.

John Farquhar, Summit Risk Solutions: So pretty much that truck, any, any

truck could be fully outfitted with.

Shell oils and lubricants of any sort.

Absolutely.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: And what does the future hold for Shell?

Um, one of the things that I drive an electric vehicle and I know

there's lubricants in an electric vehicle, there's coolants in an

electric vehicle, but there's not as many changes of those fluids.

Um, how is that going to affect Shell in the future?

If, you know, just take a shot at it.

I'm sure this isn't where your home Um, but it's just an interesting, as

we electrify some of our vehicles.

It could be a change, I would imagine.

That's

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: true.

There are different technical requirements.

Electric vehicles still need fluids.

They still need some lubrication.

Greases and those types of things.

And so Shell is working to evolve our technology to meet those needs.

You're right.

It's going to look a lot different 50 years from now than it did 50 years ago.

And we're, we're evolving in that space and providing, we call them e fluids.

You know, we have a full line and, you know, an R& D group that's working

on the, the fluid needs of electric vehicles as they become more prominent.

Definitely.

, Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: well, thanks.

Last word, Karin.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: I would suggest that you go to the

https://rotella.shell.com/ website.

There is a whole team in the background that will guide you

to the right product for your application and help answer questions.

And if they, uh, get a question that they, they can't, um, answer.

You know, offhand, they'll, they'll bring me in or shoot it over to me and

see if I could, but there's a wealth of information on product selection

for your particular situation.

And I would, I would recommend that you start there.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: That website addresses in the show notes down below.

Perfect.

Karin, last word, anything else we need to know about Shell?

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Well, I just want to say thanks for having me.

It was great talking to you guys and talking about Rotella.

It's an exciting time in the engine oil business.

I know that sounds really corny I guess.

That's where I am in my life, but there's lots of exciting changes coming up with

the new category development, which will launch around this time in 2027.

And so, you know, we'll be out.

Um, at the, uh, truck shows throughout the year and talking to people and

answering questions and kind of, kind of bring it about what, what's coming

new in the, in the coming years, um, and what new products that we're launching.

So, um, you know, we look forward to, to seeing our customers

in those spaces for sure.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Awesome.

I can't, I just imagine that with everything that's changing and all the

pressures on the engine manufacturers and the truck manufacturers To reduce,

uh, environment damage and increase fuel economy and everything else.

Uh, engine lubrication has a huge part to play.

So there has to be a lot of R& D going on in the background all the time.

Karin Haumann, Shell Rotella: Absolutely, absolutely.

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: Karen is just a wealth of knowledge when

it comes to engines and lubrication.

I would encourage you to take a look at the Shell, sorry, the rotella.

shell.

com website and, uh, you can get your questions answered there.

Thanks Karen for coming on the Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast.

It was a great interview.

And I'm sure you'd love to too.

If you've got the time and you appreciated it, give it a thumbs up,

leave us a comment, tell us what you would like to hear on the podcast.

Chris and Johnny, we're out.

See you next week.