ok... ive heard both stories: 1. that you shouldnt idle a diesel engine for more than like 10 minutes, but i always see semis idling all night? 2. ive also heard that that you should avoid shutting off and turning on a diesel, i always will see a diesel pickup in the wal mart parking lot and it will be idling out there for atleast half an hour. i always though it would be better for the engine and everything to keep it running and not to shut it off if your just going to run in a store quick. what is right??

 

if you want to idle it that long use diesel kleen, but honestly if its going to take me more than 5 mins to do something i just shut it off.

 

With my job I have to idle my truck for long periods of time, it's not un-common for my truck to idle for an hour or two at a time (or longer) on account of a PTO I run, strobe lights and a 2,000 watt inverter I have. Other than a rear main oil seal leak which my truck just developed I haven't had any problems with the the EGR valve or anything. My truck is an '05 F-40, 6.0 Diesel. 13K miles, 930 engine hours.

FWIW In the owners manual for my SD suggests that for extended periods of idling, a diesel engine be used.

--Kevin
'05 SD 6.0 Diesel
Terex service body, 40' man lif

 

You want to avoid short trips where the motor doesn't have time to fully come up to operating temperature. There was a thread roaming this board towards the end of last week wherein some members were discussing how badly short trips may foul up the internals of the Powerstroke. You may want to track it down & take a gander.

As for idling, I would tend to agree with WWBeast though. If I'm popping in someplace for less than 5 minutes, I'll leave it running & lock the doors. If I'm going to be a while, it gets shut off.

 

It has become known that EGR equiped motors (whether our trucks or big rigs) are suffering from extended ideling. How long is too long, that is open for debate.

The issue is that EGR valved motors when ideling do not create enough heat energy to allow for a complete burn of the fuel and/or exhaust gasses through the EGR. This will allow for higher concentrations of carbon build-up and "fouling" of the EGR valve. The issue is worse in the winter time with ambient temps are a lot cooler and motors cool off faster.

Big rig trucks are now being equiped with APU's (Aux Power Units) to run heaters and AC units so the motors do not have to be idled for long periods of time. LEt alone the high cost of diesel to run a diesel motor and some cities and loading docks that limit excessive ideling.... and the motor manufactures recommendation not to do so... you will see less of this done from now and until the EPA department is abolished (never).

If I have been running hard or towing, I let it cool down before shut off or while re-fueling. I generally never idle more than 5 minutes even in the winter to warm up. I switched to synthetic 5W-40 oil to speed up winter starts and better summer turbo bearing protection.

Hope this helps.

Jeff