COUNTING THE COST

NON-GENUINE PARTS CAN WREAK HAVOC ON MINE SITES. CUMMINS DETAILS HOW CUSTOMERS CAN SPOT A FAKE.

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The risk of using counterfeit or non-genuine parts in a high horsepower (hp) diesel engine recently hit home at a mining operation in Western Australia.

It was revealed that a Cummins K50 – a 50-litre V16 renowned for its reliability and durability – failed at only 6000 hours powering an excavator. It would have been expected to clock up to 16,000 hours after midlife maintenance at 8000 hours.

Teardown of the 1800hp engine showed destruction inside one cylinder. The reason was obvious: counterfeit parts, including the cylinder liners, had been used by a third-party repairer to rebuild the K50.

The downfall of using an unauthorised Cummins repairer to cut costs was clear to the customer.

"At the end of the day you get what you pay for with quality products," Cummins aftermarket business development manager - mining Kyle Miller said.

"If you want to take risks to save a few dollars, you are likely to incur greater losses in business impact through downtime or performance issues."

The latest testing

A Cummins engineering team has carried out extensive testing of 106 non-genuine QSK engine parts from a recognised supplier.