Keep your trucks in tune with Lukas Motorworks
18/03/2025
One of the keys to running a profitable haulage company is to access all the tools available to maximise fleet efficiency. Consistently delivering a comprehensive range of invaluable services to truck and plant operators across the island of Ireland, the UK and beyond, it’s little wonder that Lukas Motorworks is in big demand right now!
Experts in diagnosing and curing Adblue, EGR and DPF problems or trucks, plant or agri machinery, Lukas Motorworks is renowned nationwide for providing cutting edge truck remapping and ECU repair solutions, often resulting in increased power and reduced fuel costs.
By keeping lorries and machines finely tuned and operating at maximum efficiency, in an era where the cost-of-living crisis is biting deep and every cent counts for hard-pressed operators, the value-added services delivered across the country by Lukas from his base in Newry are becoming increasingly popular and it’s hardly a surprise to learn that the friendly Polish-born truck and plant technician is being kept busy:
“There’s a nice steady demand for our services and there’s always something to do,” he confirms. “You never know what you are going to be doing or where you are going to be from one day to the next.
“It it’s not a lorry, it’s a digger and if it’s not a digger, it’s a tractor. We are quite well known now and the phone is always ringing. I’m always available to help people out in any way I can.”
Manning a fully-kitted-out mobile service unit and with his trusty laptop always within arm’s reach, business founder and driving force Lukas Szlufik has earned a stellar reputation as one of Ireland’s most-popular and sought-after truck and plant machinery technicians over the past seven years and counting.
As Lukas Motorworks’ prompt, professional and expert interventions can potentially save operators in the transport and plant hire industries significant amounts of money over the lifetime of a vehicle, he is always on the road, regularly called to fleet and machinery yards, depots and workplaces all over Ireland north and south, the UK and even out onto mainland Europe.
An outgoing, amiable and sociable individual with a genuine interest in looking after customers, Lukas brought his service unit to this year’s Full of the Pipe in Mondello Park in mid-July and also to the tenth-year-anniversary Tipperary Truck Show on August 31st, to touch base with and renew acquaintances with the some of the many people he’d met and worked with down through the years.
“We went to both shows and had a good time. We really just went to catch up with people. We didn’t get any new customers from the shows; it was more a case of going so we could speak to our existing customers, have a few beers with them and let them know that we still exist.
“It’s not about advertising for me and really there is no need to advertise at all. Ireland is a very small country and most people in the industry know me and know the service we provide.”
While he also runs a workshop on Newry’s Rock Road providing repairs and engines and transmission reconditioning services to limited customers, Lukas mans the eye-catching mobile service vehicle on a full-time basis, providing a whole range of services on the road, including 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.
On a healthy truck, a remapping intervention can result in reduced fuel consumption, leading to significant savings per week, so the initial cost of engaging Lukas can be paid back within six-to-eight weeks and after that everything is savings / profit. Ultimately, is the service all about saving customers money on the day-to-day running of their fleets?
“We try the best we can to save them money but can’t promise miracles. Remapping is a big job and fuel consumption should go down afterwards, so there should usually be savings. It’s impossible to predict what these might be.
“There is a big difference between a lorry that’s stuck in traffic a lot or doing heavy work and one that’s out on the open road covering big distances. For the latter, savings will be guaranteed. We have one customer who goes to Cork, Dublin and Galway and back in his lorry and they are saving money because fuel consumption is down 2.5 to 3 litres per 100 km.”
It’s not just trucks that Lukas looks after; he also specialises in plant and agri machinery remapping. “I’m doing a lot of construction machinery, diggers and quarry jobs,” he says. “It’s a tight market but the pay is good as there aren’t a lot of people doing this kind of work on plant and machinery.”
Distance is never an obstacle for Lukas and, depending on his workload, sometimes he has to organise overnight stays to make sure he can get to people as quickly and efficiently as possible. On other occasions, it he doesn’t know about a job in advance a situation might occur where he goes to Cork on day, drives home and is asked to return to Cork for another job the following day!
“What can you do? It’s not my choice, it’s the customer’s choice,” he concludes. “We go wherever the work is and I’m not going to complain about it. I travel all over Ireland and also go to the UK for a couple of days every three weeks to keep everybody happy. I’m still looking after steady customers with specialist jobs in the workshop, too, so we are being kept busy and that’s the way I like it.”
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 January/February 2025, Vol 28-1
