Lube-Tech PUBLISHED BY LUBE: THE EUROPEAN LUBRICANTS INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
To promote reliability in this self-certification system, the European oil industry relies on the European Engine Lubricant Quality Management System (EELQMS). EELQMS is a voluntary quality framework developed jointly by ACEA, ATIEL (the Technical Association of the European Lubricants Industry) and the Additive Manufacturers Technical Committee (ATC). Under EELQMS, lubricant marketers are expected to adhere to the ATIEL Code of Practice; a detailed guideline that standardises how oils are developed and tested for ACEA claims. Marketers who follow the ATIEL Code of Practice sign a Letter of Conformance and register it with ATIEL’s administrative arm, SAIL (Services to Associations and Industry in the Lubricants sector). By signing and registering this Letter of Conformance, companies publicly declare their participation in EELQMS and commitment to abide by the industry’s quality standards. ACEA now requires that any marketer making ACEA performance claims must submit such a Letter of Conformance via ATIEL/SAIL, effectively tying ACEA claims to adherence to the CoP. This process doesn’t pre-approve the oil but creates accountability. A list of all lubricant companies who have signed the compliance letter is published by SAIL, and those companies agree to make test data available and to undergo audits if required and requested.
In practice, oil marketers do rigorously follow EELQMS: they invest in running the battery of engine tests defined in the ACEA sequences (often in collaboration with additive suppliers who have testing “packs” of data) and they maintain internal quality systems to ensure that every claimed formulation is covered by valid test results. However, nothing strictly stops an oil marketer from skipping tests, overstating results or not holding a technology supplier accountable for appropriate test data, since there is no official licensing. This is where bodies like ATIEL and VLS step in with compliance monitoring. Since 2014, ATIEL has operated a compliance program that performs random or targeted testing
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of oils off the market to verify their claims and this was reinforced with a new policy in 2017. SAIL, on behalf of ATIEL, conducts independent monitoring of engine oil quality, checking that products sold as ACEA-compliant do indeed meet the requirements. Over the years, ATIEL’s program has found several non-compliant products globally, including cases of incompatible specification claims (e.g. claiming mutually exclusive ACEA categories on one label) and oils failing certain chemical and physical limits. Documented failures have included out-of-range values for Total Base Number (TBN), sulphated ash, phosphorus content, Noack volatility or viscosity parameters, where the tested sample did not meet the claimed specification limits. When such discrepancies are found, ATIEL can pressure the company to correct or withdraw claims and industry groups like VLS may be alerted for further action.
Figure 2: Lubrizol in-house engine test cell used to test the SFU oils. Image owned and protected by Lubrizol.
While ACEA sequences provide a baseline, many vehicle manufacturers also have their own OEM-specific oil specifications that go beyond ACEA in certain aspects. Examples include Volkswagen’s VW 50400 / 50700, Mercedes-Benz’s MB 229.52 plus several others. Obtaining the right to claim an approval according to an OEM specification always involves a formal approval process: the oil formulation
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