Let’s face it. Taking your vehicle to the shop for preventive maintenance or repair sucks valuable time out of the day. RWC Group, a full-service heavy truck dealer with 800 employees serving Arizona, Alaska, California, Oregon and Washington, recognized there was an opportunity to eliminate the wasted time. So, they decided to do something about it. RWC Group carved out a mobile PM advantage with a lube skid for service trucks — bringing the dealership to the customer.
Think of RWC Group as a mobile dealership on four wheels. Customers save time and money by not having to transport their trucks to repair locations. They brought the mobile PM advantage concept to life with the right people doing the right jobs.
“We continue to see mobile service growing in the future. Our customers continue to want to see that done in the field instead of going to the dealership,” said Josh Schouten, general manager of new trucks for RWC Group.
On-site mobile services include preventive maintenance, extensive repairs and DOT inspections. Trucks are no longer required to be brought into RWC Group’s shop except to fix catastrophic failures and complete major repairs.
A new approach requires the right tools
RWC Group knew their success hinged on maximizing the number of customer trucks serviced in the field. That meant labor-intensive oil changes using drain pans and boxes of oil were no longer a viable option. Their team first turned to pump-based lube skids for their fleet of service trucks.
While RWC Group realized efficiency advantages with lube skids for service trucks, pump-system failures proved troublesome. These early lube skids were integrated into the truck chassis. When a pump went down, the service truck was down. Uptime suffered. Aging trucks in the fleet also created reliability concerns. If a truck needed repairs, the lube skid was out of service too.
RWC Group visited the NTEA Work Truck Week trade show in Indianapolis to find a better long-term solution. Initially, the goal was to locate a body vendor for their existing mobile service solution.
“We were trying to find the best solution for us, something that would fit in the bodies we were running,” said Schouten.
That’s when they came across the Sage Oil Vac booth and noticed the pump-free mobile lube skid on display. Sage Oil Vac CEO Aaron Sage was in the booth and explained the system’s benefits. The versatile and portable pump-free Sage Oil Vac lube skid uses compressed air to build vacuum pressure that moves fluids to and from tanks. Fill products can be vacuumed at up to 20 gallons per minute and hot motor oil can be vacuumed at up to six to eight gallons per minute. Clean, sealed tanks keep contaminants out of fresh fluids and reduce spillage on the job. Finally, no pumps result in fewer maintenance problems for a lower cost of ownership.
“Because the Sage system is so simple, it is easy to operate in the field. Chance Castillo, Sage Oil Vac corporate sales manager, and the rest of the team presented us with a standard offering that fits the need. The rest is history,” said Schouten.
The perfect tool for the task
The RWC team chose the compact footprint of a 260V Heritage Lube Skid from a wide range of Sage Oil Vac skids to outfit their fleet. It provided an ideal solution for their service truck applications. A 60-gallon vertical used oil tank, 60-gallon vertical fresh oil tank, 50-foot hose reels and the lack of a compressor result in a small footprint that fits the dealership’s service trucks. The two-tank setup worked for RWC Group, as the lube skids are primarily used during engine oil changes. The skids can use the existing air compressors on the service truck.
With forklift pockets, the 260V Heritage Lube Skid is a great lube skid for service trucks. It can easily be transferred between vehicles, solving a key challenge for RWC Group. Technicians can continue without missing a beat, maintaining the mobile PM advantage. This versatility also allows the lube skids to be swapped out when more room is needed on the service truck for a customer repair job.
In addition to the Sage Vac 260V Heritage Lube Skid, RWC Group invested in a Filter Stinger™, barrel straws and an offload hose to maximize oil change cleanliness and efficiency. The Filter Stinger attachment connects to the used oil hose to make the filter draining process cleaner by puncturing the oil filter and suctioning the used oil directly to the used tank.
The barrel straw simplifies vacuuming fluids into the tank for RWC Group, eliminating the need for transfer pumps during bulk oil storage or drum storage. They can place the barrel straw in the fresh fluid tank and insert the opposite end in a bulk tank. The vacuum process is 100% self-contained within the straw to reduce the chance of any fluid spilling on the ground.
Partners for success
RWC Group continues to invest in technology with nearly 40 Sage Oil Vac lube skids in its fleet to strengthen its mobile PM advantage, from Arizona up to Alaska.
“RWC continues to see mobile service growing in the future. Our customers continue to want to see that done in the field instead of going to the dealership,” said Schouten.
To elevate on-site maintenance to the next level the dealership continues to partner with Sage Oil Vac.
“Every time we need a solution to a problem, Sage Oil Vac reliably shares what can be done. The timeline is always translated, and they are flexible in what they can do,” said Schouten.
View the full lineup of Sage Oil Vac mobile lube skid solutions here.
