Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: Clevy
OP
I'm in complete disagreement with the majority here. Think about it. All those stops and starts are cold starts with oil that isn't up to operating temp which translates to extreme fuel dilution and accelerated wear.
I've been in your friends position and I let the vehicle run. The oil is up to temp and all systems functioning normally.
Idling burns minimal fuel. I've had evenings this winter where I was unable to plug my charger in so I let it run all night. I burned less than 2 gallons of fuel in 8 hours so that's a non issue.
And before anyone even thinks about posting that idling adds wear I'd like to point out most law enforcement fleets.
To start off the cruisers run sometimes 24 hours a day. An they'll go from idle to wide open throttle when in pursuit and even when officers are just driving around they aren't being easy on them.
Think about it. If you had a semi-decent performing vehicle and you didn't pay for the fuel how heavy is your foot going to be.
So after these vehicles get retired they go to auction where they then are absorbed into a taxi fleet.
So now we've got former beat up cop cars then becoming cabs,who's drivers operate them as though they are someone else's and jack rabbit starts are basically every green light.
These cars routinely roll past 400k,being run 24/7 and flogged by each operator.
So tell me again about idling increasing wear. It sounds great in theory but in practice that theory gets scattered like a skeet.
In fact in my experience the fleet vehicles run for at least as long and longer than their brethren operated by the common demographic that purchases those types of vehicles.
And I've bought trucks off my dad that were purchased by him new that ran for 10-12 hours a day checking various sites and both those trucks had more than 450k on the odo.
So from what I've seen,and from what I've seen in fleet duty idling does absolutely no harm whatsoever.
But the incessant stop/start 50 times a day is going to kill starters,harder on the battery,cold oil,fuel dilution,among a host of other potential issues.
I say let er run.
I agree. People on here IMO talk about fuel dilution too much, I've heard some talking about fuel dilution in a drive thru or not warming up more than a couple minutes in the morning and making it sound like your oil pan is going to be 4 quarts of oil and 4 quarts of gas. A buddy of mine has a brother in Alaska and in the summer most people where he lives do not shut their cars off all day, they just let it run in the parking lot at the grocery store and let it warm up for an hour before leaving in the morning. His truck with all this idling has over 200k hard miles, runs like a champ
Fuel dilution will only accumulate if the oil doesn't get a chance to evaporate what it's already accumulated,which is why short trippers may have the issue. The piston isn't tight in the bore and the engine is running rich to fire the cat.
Anyways I've seen multiple examples of vehicles that idled all day for years and still ran great when totalled near 1/2 million miles.
