Jaguar Racing chooses Castrol and Optimum

Citation

(2005), "Jaguar Racing chooses Castrol and Optimum", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 57 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilt.2005.01857bad.001

Jaguar Racing chooses Castrol and Optimum

Jaguar Racing chooses Castrol and Optimum

Keywords: Castrol, Jaguar, Automotive fuels

When Jaguar Racing chose Castrol's Alusol XTH to replace a poorly performing fluid in its hard water area, the company also agreed a fluid management programme with Optimum Metalworking Limited, a specialist metalworking and fluids support company working with Castrol.

The Jaguar Racing machine shop is dedicated entirely to the Jaguar Formula One racing team and everything, but the engine is manufactured there, including suspension and hydraulic components, chassis parts, etc. The busy operation runs 24h a day during the week and has peak periods in October and November when the team is building next season's car for testing in January (Plate 1).

The machine shop employs 24 people, operates 16 machines ranging from five axis mills to a DMU50 Evolution and a DMU200T, and works with materials such as titanium, different aluminium alloys, steels and plastics.

Plate 1 Jaguar Racing team's Formula1 car of which Castrol is a sponsor

With so much depending on the performance of individual components, it is no surprise that the Jaguar machine shop team depends on Castrol for its cutting fluids.

As Manager Lee Harrold explains: “Our previous coolant didn't perform well in this hard water area and as a result the product was 'soapy', deteriorated quickly and left marks on the components.

When Castrol and another leading supplier were invited to propose an alternative, Castrol engineers first tested the water before recommending Alusol XTH. Following trials of the recommended coolants from both companies, Alusol XTH was chosen and has now replaced the previous coolant in all but two of Jaguar Racings machines.”

The other benefit of the change for Jaguar Racing was the agreement with Optimum Metalworking, a specialist in the supply and maintenance of metalworking fluids. Its support team works closely with Castrol to ensure that customers achieve maximum efficiency and significantly increased operating life from Castrol's product range, by monitoring machine operations and advising if metalworking fluids are running too weak or too rich and adjusting the mix as required.

Besides the improvement in hard water performance, which has eliminated the staining problems, Lee Harrold is also enthusiastic about the other benefits of using Alusol XTH.

“It has extended sump life by as much as three or four times in the lathes and small machines where the previous fluid needed to be changed every month, and in some of the machines we are still using oil that was put in at the original change over a year ago.”

He reports that as well as reducing costs, Alusol's longer life has had a significant impact on disposal costs, adding that downtime, which previously meant 6h coolant changes at least every month, has also been greatly reduced leading to substantial efficiency improvements.

Summing up, he says that even after months of use, the Alusol XTH is still white and looks like coolant, whereas the previous fluid had become thick, yellow and frothy.

“It doesn't cling to the inside of the machine like the previous product did and it smells better, so overall there's a big improvement in the working environment.”

For further information, contact: E-mail: thrussc@castrol.com; web site: www.castroladvantage.com