OK, after nearly going brain dead reading the HPFP thread and all the associated articles, here is a lighter subject.

After turing 10,000 miles this week I noticed my display screen says I have 32 hours of "engine idle hours". I virtually never let my engine sit idling. I guess I do some idling while in traffic on the 80 between Berkley and the MacArthur Maze. More like stop and creep. Does this register as engine idling hours?

I just found this to be a curious figure I can't understand. A lot lighter subject than Rick's "P*** Poor Pump Problems". I don't know about Rick's wife, but mine would be visiting me in the nuthouse after the way Ford has mistreated him. We all may be NEXT.


Jim

 

I would consider idle hours as any time that the truck is running and in Park. I'm not so sure that the computer sees it that way. Perhaps idle hours are racked up any time that the truck is not moving. I am interested in seeing an educated answer on this one myself.

 

Short of starting the engine, placing it in drive, setting the e-brake, and watching the hour meter to see if it changes after several minutes, I don't think anyone has answered this question yet. The only real fact is that somewhere is published that 20% idle hours vs. engine hours is the guideline. Over that is considered "excessive"

 

I think it registers idle as any time you're not pressing the throttle, maybe even a slow coast when your rpm's are the same as idle . I too rarely let mine idle and my idle time was up there the last time I checked.

 

Hey guys I have to admit I have an alterior motive for this thread. I was sitting one day in the truck listening to Sirius (engine off) waiting for my wife, and was playing with the display screen. That was when I noticed the engine idle hours. It got me to thinking how the display could be right. Then I had a chill up my back thinking could Ford say that was excessive engine idling hours? And, this thought happened BEFORE Rick's horror story.

So, I was trying to figure out how the display could possibly be accurate. I have a chassis cab engine, I'm sure some C/C owner's have to idle their trucks while using it in the business, I don't. "Excessive Engine Idle Hours", I can just see this being a point of contention when something on our truck requires a trip to the service department.

Maybe some of our tech members can tell us how the truck compiles this statistic. Will this stat be the next ingredient in "RICK'S SYNDROME", causing the HPFP's to fail. Or was 'RICK'S SYNDROME" caused by wif, poor fuel quality, lack of fuel lubrication, Bosch's fuel pump design or maybe it's that darn EEIH (you guessed it excessive engine idle hours)

Dang, this would almost be comical if it wasn't for poor Rick and maybe some of the rest of us---to come!!!

 

We had several good inside Detroit sources posting here providing engineering perspective and answering our questions. I have not seen any of them posting since this started. I don't expect them to start posting again any time soon with the continued rehashing of this subject. All I keep hearing is how much Ford will lose over this one incident, but it looks to me like we are the only ones losing anything here.

 

Hi Jim,

I see where you're going with this and I think you can relax. Excessive idling is a bad thing for lots of things on these engines, but I have yet to hear of any reason why this could hurt the HPFP or injectors.

Besides, idle time is typically referred to as a percentage of engine run time. A simple hour figure is meaningless without your overall run time to put it into context.

 

Tom, I am semi-serious about the idle hours. I actually am curious about how the figure is arrived at. I was just trying to put a little humorous spin on the HPFP aspect. I know there is absolutely NOTHING funny about it to Rick, we all feel his pain. But, on a somewhat serious note, why is the idle time even recorded? I'm not trying t make a mountain out of a mole hill, just curious. I guess we will all be wondering if our trucks will have some catastrophic event like Rick's. It might take a little time for us to move on, and go back to just enjoying our trucks.

Jim

 

One of the reasons for the tracking of idle time is for the oil moniter system,more idle time equals more frequent oil change.

 

Here for your amusement is miles, hours, and idle hours data that I have:

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="155"><colgroup><col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:2486;width:51pt" width="68"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:1718;width:35pt" width="47"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:1462;width:30pt" width="40"> </colgroup><tbody><tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt; width:51pt" align="right" height="16" width="68">4,700</td> <td style="width:35pt" align="right" width="47">126</td> <td style="width:30pt" align="right" width="40">14</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">10,103</td> <td align="right">264</td> <td align="right">26</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">11,449</td> <td align="right">296</td> <td align="right">28</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">12,182</td> <td align="right">313</td> <td align="right">29</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">12,882</td> <td align="right">329</td> <td align="right">30</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">13,583</td> <td align="right">345</td> <td align="right">31</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">14,108</td> <td align="right">356</td> <td align="right">31</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">14,225</td> <td align="right">359</td> <td align="right">31</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">14,285</td> <td align="right">360</td> <td align="right">31</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">14,744</td> <td align="right">370</td> <td align="right">31</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">15,197</td> <td align="right">379</td> <td align="right">32</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">15,233</td> <td align="right">380</td> <td align="right">32</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.0pt" height="16"> <td class="xl69" style="height:12.0pt" align="right" height="16">15,248</td> <td align="right">381</td> <td align="right">32</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
I never let the truck sit idling for longer than a minute or so when I start it up.

I don't know for sure how it counts idle time but I'm leaning towards it counts whenever there is no throttle input regardless if you are in park or not.

Also, when I first got it, it had quite a few idle hours on it already. I didn't write down the number but I clearly recall wondering how the heck the idle hours could be that high when there was less than 100 miles on the odometer.

 

I've got 22,500 miles on my truck.

Out of that I have put on two 4000 miles trips (which didn't have much idle time)

Engine time is 840
Idle time is 240

--
Gordon

 

engine 44,000 miles
running hours 1300
idle hours 329

 

I believe the idle hours are taken into account when calculating when the next oil change is due. Because there is no mini Blackstone lab located within the vehicle to actually test the oil, it's probably just calculating it based on data it uses for day to day operation anyway.

Just a thought to why this info is recorded. I personally believe the info display should give me EVERYTHING it can tell me all the time. Like a few screens from the Engineering mode that display coolant temp as a number (gives you a better idea of what 'somewhere beween C and H' means), vehicle ground speed in mph and km/h, current RPM, live fuel float readings as a numeric value, battery voltage (since the analog gauge is missing on diesels), etc.

 

3800 miles, 32 hours of idle.

Idling to me would be when I am hooking or unhooking trailers, or dropping my son off at school in the winter, etc.

I imagine the remote start, is going to impact IDLe time too.

 

This is why I'm gettin a high idle switch installed. When I run into the grocery store or wherever for 5 or 10 min I have no intentions on shutting the truck down at
-40. This os my first diesel but from my understanding these engines like to keep the heat in them. Thoughts?