When fresh snow falls or a roadside shoulder needs repair, Mike Gaskell and his team of drivers don’t have time to wait.
As the shop superintendent of the Calumet County Highway Department based in Chilton, Wis., local residents count on Gaskell and his crew to keep more than 200 miles of county and state roadways clear and maintained.
“Our taxpayers are depending on us to deliver, so they can get where they need to go safely,” says Gaskell. “We can’t afford to have trucks out of commission or needing downtime, especially if it's caused by something preventable, like the fuel we’re using.”
So when the department continued to experience disruptive challenges like gelling, frequent regenerations (regens) and ongoing emissions system issues that were keeping the county’s fleet off the road, Gaskell began to consider new fuel options.
“Minor mechanical failures are going to happen from time to time, but to have three or four trucks on the side of the road because they’re gelled up? That’s just inexcusable, and a clear sign of fuel that’s underperforming,” Gaskell says.
Competitive comparison
In search of a fuel that would best meet the fleet’s needs, Gaskell opted to embrace an experiment.
He partnered with Steve Grosklaus, a certified energy specialist with Country Visions Cooperative in Brillion, Wis., to analyze and understand performance issues the county’s equipment was experiencing and thoroughly assess the characteristics of his current #2 diesel fuel against Cenex® premium diesel fuels.*
Following a careful evaluation of Cenex premium diesel’s enhanced formula and terminally injected additive package, Gaskell took his research a step further and introduced Cenex premium diesel fuel at one of the county’s equipment shops.
“We continued to run our shop in Chilton on fuel from our original supplier, but we started seeing promising results from the shop in Sherwood that we were running on Cenex Roadmaster XL® and Cenex® winterized premium diesel fuels well before the year was up.”*
Proof in performance
Within a matter of months, Gaskell and his team saw a marked drop in performance issues and maintenance needed in their vehicles running on Cenex premium diesel.
“We slowly noticed over eight or nine months that we weren’t giving our Sherwood fleet much attention because, quite frankly, there was no need.”
When using standard # 2 diesel fuel, Gaskell notes his team typically performed six to nine diesel particulate filter (DPF) cleanouts and at least 12 to 15 regens each year. Within its first year running on Cenex premium diesel, Gaskell’s fleet was down to just two regens and one DPF cleanout.*
Gaskell says a typical regen costs his operation an average of two hours of downtime on a vehicle, as well as the labor cost for mechanics who are unable to work on the vehicle. He estimates the reduction in regens his team experienced in their first year running on Cenex premium diesel spared his team more than 25 hours of downtime.
“We don’t see plugged filters anymore and this year we haven’t needed a single regen,” he says. "That's a remarkable change, considering the time we were able to keep those trucks running and out on the road."
Advantage inside
When his team performed larger mechanical repairs, they were also surprised to find notable, visible results of fuel performance under the hood.
“We ran into an issue with an engine cylinder and removed the injector to ensure the trouble wasn’t stemming from carbon buildup,” says Gaskell. “As a municipality fleet, we’re used to running a fair amount of idle time in these vehicles, so we typically see heavy carbon buildup on injectors. But this injector — the oldest in our fleet — was amazingly clean; there was no buildup whatsoever and the pistons and cylinders were in great shape.
“In my 15 years at the county, this was one of the cleanest injection systems I’ve seen,” he adds, “and clear proof the fuel’s additives and detergents were working like they should.”*
Gaskell’s team also found the fleet’s cold weather performance issues had been resolved, even in the harshest conditions and at severe low temperatures.
“At our Sherwood facility, we noticed a complete stop in the gelling we’d seen previously — even when we tested and ran these vehicles at minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Cenex winterized premium diesel fuels completely eradicated the cold-weather issues we were looking to resolve, whereas at our Chilton shop, we were still needing to splash-blend to try to keep gelling at bay.”*
Rethinking ROI
After more than a year of tracked performance improvements, Gaskell made the decision to run the entire Calumet County fleet exclusively with Cenex fuels.
“We’re not worried about trucks breaking down or underperforming anymore. And along with that reduction in downtime, we also saw significant cost savings in labor and maintenance, which really drove our decision to switch,” says Gaskell.*
“Our technicians have noticed they’re not having to spend as much time working on emissions systems, which can be a constant drain on a fleet. Anything you can do to alleviate that pain is money well spent.”
Now, with the results of Gaskell’s experiment, the county is rethinking its approach to investments in inputs like fuel, with a focus on back-end savings over up-front costs.
“We’re prioritizing performance over price,” he says. “The product has more than proven it can deliver when it matters most, not just on cost savings and efficiency, but when we need to be out on the road. This is the quality we want for our fleet.”
*Tests conducted between Cenex Roadmaster XL® and Cenex winterized premium diesel fuels against typical #2 diesel. Testing conducted in limited setting and conditions. Individual field results may vary.
