Maximise your fleet efficiency with Lukas Motorworks
22/09/2023
Lukas Motorworks provide a comprehensive range of invaluable services to truck and plant operators across the island of Ireland, the UK and beyond, including cutting edge truck remapping and ECU repair solutions, which result in increased power and reduced fuel costs. Irish Trucker travelled to Newry and interrupted proprietor Lukas’ busy schedule to find out more.
Over the past five years, Lukas Szlufik has earned a stellar reputation as one of Ireland’s most-popular and sought-after truck and plant machinery technicians.
By virtue of the fact that his prompt, professional and expert interventions can save owners significant amounts of money over the lifetime of a vehicle, the Polish native’s value-added services are in big demand across the transport and plant hire industries not just in Ireland and the UK but also throughout the continent.
Indeed, when we touched base with the personable proprietor of Lukas Motorworks in Newry, County Down, he had his trusty laptop packed away safely and was en route to the airport to accommodate a regular customer in Belgium.
Word has spread fast of the top-class independent services Lukas offers, all of which serve to increase fleet efficiency over the medium-to-long term, thus invariably saving truck and machinery operators both time and money – which of course is the bottom line in any business.
The Lukas Motorworks workshop on Newry’s Rock Road is a veritable hive of activity, specialising predominantly in large repair jobs such as engines and transmission reconditioning.
While his trusty team of technicians take care of business there, Lukas mans the eye-catching mobile service vehicle, providing a whole range of services on the road, including – but by no means limited to – truck and plant machinery remapping and ECU (engine control unit) repair, diagnostics and even mobile wheel alignment.
ECU chipping / reprogramming will invariably maximise engine performance, resulting in increased power and lower fuel and Adblue consumption.
Meanwhile, Lukas Motorworks also offer an unbeatable DPF cleaning service (restoring the vehicle’s filter from used to brand-new in double-quick time) as well as DPF replacement on HGV vehicles. They carry in stock clean DPF filters for all commercial vehicles, including Scania, DAF, Volvo, Iveco and Renault, and also replace Scania coordinators as well as providing EGR and SCR solutions.
“The business has been up and running for five years now but this is what I’ve worked at all my life,” Lukas reveals. “We have our own workshop in Newry where we do general truck repairs, but I also do a lot of remapping in Ireland, the UK and Europe as well.
“We have built up a lot of good contacts in the industry and have a very good reputation. We also do quite a lot of plant and machinery reprogramming as well, so you could say we are specialists in both truck and plant remapping.”
Is the main benefit of truck remapping increased power and maximised engine performance? “Well, if the truck is healthy, which will often be the case, 70 or 80 per cent of the time it’s just fuel consumption which will be reduced, and that can still lead to big savings, especially with the price of fuel today,” Lukas concedes.
“Everybody expects miracles and while we don’t claim to perform miracles, a saving per truck of €60-70 per week can be made, while Adblue consumption also slows.
“A lot of men are starting out by trying one or two trucks first to see how it works out and then, once they see the savings that are being made, they will then remap the whole fleet. The job isn’t cheap but if a truck is on the road five or six days a week, then it will pay for itself within six weeks and everything after that will be savings.”
Lukas provides a personal, professional hands-on service and makes it a priority to carry out all the remapping and technical work himself. Meanwhile, the team in the workshop tackles general repairs. “We don’t really want to be doing six-week inspections and routine jobs,” he notes.
“If you have contracts with companies, a lorry could be in every second day getting something checked or fixed, and you have to get in parts and it can take up a lot of time. So we prefer to focus on bigger jobs like engine and gearbox repairs, where you have the truck for a week or so and order in parts once – this is better use of our time.”
Lukas is pleased to report that he’s being kept very busy and points out that one of the biggest attractions of the services provided is that he can be on site literally within a matter of hours:
“We are busy and we can’t complain. We have a really good reputation and that is bringing in a lot of work,” he concludes. “I can jump in the car and do a remapping job anywhere in Ireland in three or four hours max.
“Scania coordinators on models from 2010 to 2016 all either have to be replaced or already have been. These are £1300 to buy new but I have reconditioned units for £550. I can supply, fit and re-programme them for £1100 in total.
“We carry these replacement coordinators in stock and can provide that service island-wide. Last week, I was over in Galway doing one. Scania dealers will do nothing if you don’t have your immobiliser codes, but I don’t need those.”
Contact Lukas Motorworks today to discuss how you can make savings on the day-to-day running of your fleet!
Lukas Motorworks,
7 Rock Road,
Unit 5,
Newry,
County Down.
Tel: 0044 7446 709485 / 087 2280156
Email: [email protected]
First published in Irish Trucker magazine Vol 26 No 4 July 2023
