Drivers Idling!!!

[AMX]

Last evening, I filled up my gas tank because gas prices were going up today. So anyways, I went to a local gas station and cars were lined up waiting (about 2 or 3 cars at each pump). So like a smart driver, I got in line and shut the engine off. I couldn't get over how many people were idling!! It just doesn't make sence that people are waiting to get a few cents cheaper per liter of gas, yet they are wasting gas by idling!! Anyways, I just needed to rant. Any comments?

[jadziasman]

Must be that they're accustomed to idling in traffic jams so waiting with the engine running just feels "right" somehow to them.

Like anything else - it becomes habit and you really don't notice you're doing it.

Here's what surprises the hell out of me, though.

I am amazed at the number of people who don't turn off their cars waiting for a freight train to clear an intersection. Now that can be a long wait. But, idle away they go. During nice weather I like to get out of my car and lean on the hood waiting for the train to finally go past - I like watching trains. As long as the hood is not too hot - I don't like toasty buns. LOL!

[roadrunner]

I get upset about trucks idling, when they go inside to get food, or to eat inside. Nearly all leave their trucks running. Also small busses are running the entire time the drivers are taking their break for lunch. There is NO good reason to leave them running...........stupid people.

[1993CivicVX]

I've been doing tons of EOC lately (prolly more than what most people on these boards would deem safe or reasonable) and I got to a parking lot at Holyoke College to go get a book from the library and there is a big SUV in the parking lot with no one inside and the engine running. In front of the truck was a guy on the grass by a tree. I thought it kind of ironic that I roll in there with my engine off in a small little car to see a big SUV idling for no apparent reason. I came back from the library about 20 minutes later or so and the SUV was still there idling--but now the man on the grass was gone and someone (probably the same person) was sitting inside the vehicle.

Not really related to that little anecdote, I'm always curious what people around me think when they hear my starter turn in the middle of traffic.

[R.I.D.E.]

Consider this as an extreeme case of the consequences of idling.

Houston is being evacuated due to a hurricane, most of the cars run out of gas on the interstate in the crawling traffic jam averaging less than 10 mph.

If everyone had shut their engines off and allowed a 10 mile gap to grow between groups of traffic, many of those that ran out of gas could have made it.

To say nothing about the bus whose brakes caught on fire and killed a bunch of elderly people.


regards
gary

[soletek]

What blows me away are the people across the street from me, sitting in line to get gas when I'm in the station with the lowest price. I know for a fact that the gas in both stations is delivered by the same truck on the same day out of the same tank. I have watched it deliver on multiple occasions. So much for Techron, whatever that means.

The real mind boggler, if you haven't thought about it yet: I asked the truck driver -- How many gallons of gas does each of his two tanks hold?-- He said, "The larger front tank holds 24,000 gallons, the smaller rear tank holds 20,000 gallons." At the current average price of $3.90/gal., locally, the load value is $171,600. Knowing this has given me flashbacks to the movie Roadwarrior

Something I learned that is a real eye opener -- after fuel has been created at the refinery it is pumped through huge, extremely long pipe lines to distribution stations; in some cases 100s of miles away. When they pump the different grades of gas and diesel through the same line they don't even separate it. They have worked out a calculated mix ratio they factor in. This is why it is so easy to get contaminated gasoline and/or diesel depending on how close to the end of each slug of fuel you happen to get. Only in certain cases are dividers pushed through the pipeline. They are not put in place to separate the fuels though. These devices are called 'pigs' because of the squealing sound they make as they scrape deposits from the inside of the pipe. Many of these pigs have another task to accomplish. They use ultra-sound to check for cracks in the pipeline and radio back their location when a crack is found.

[slurp812]

Originally Posted by roadrunner

I get upset about trucks idling, when they go inside to get food, or to eat inside. Nearly all leave their trucks running. Also small busses are running the entire time the drivers are taking their break for lunch. There is NO good reason to leave them running...........stupid people.

I like hearing them ***** about gas prices, that I tell them I get 34+ miles per gallon...

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by roadrunner

I get upset about trucks idling, when they go inside to get food, or to eat inside. Nearly all leave their trucks running. Also small busses are running the entire time the drivers are taking their break for lunch. There is NO good reason to leave them running...........stupid people.

Actually, in many cases there are very good mechanical reasons. I don't know all of them, though I am aware of their existence. The one I do know is that turbo diesels can NOT be shut off until they are properly cooled down, else there will be bad damage.

[SD26]

Agreed. A turbo charged diesel puts out a lot of heat. At idle, I believe a turbo is still spinning at about 10,000 RPM's.

Immediate shut down of turbo diesel isn't good for longevity. Oil can coke up on the bearings. There are some kits that can allow a person to shut off the key, then walk away while the engine runs for a few minutes. Not common, as most just decide to let their diesel run. A diesel truck will even cool down the coolant quite a bit while idling.

[opelgt73]

Originally Posted by roadrunner

I get upset about trucks idling, when they go inside to get food, or to eat inside. Nearly all leave their trucks running. Also small busses are running the entire time the drivers are taking their break for lunch. There is NO good reason to leave them running...........stupid people.

I think that in a diesel truck motor it is very hard on the motor to stop and start it, and it also takes a considerable amount more fuel to re-start the motor than it does to just let it idle for a few minutes. I could be wrong, but I thought that there was a real reason for trucks doing that.

Heres a crazy story for you. My boss is well known for being forgetful. He travels a lot and frequently will leave his phone behind, or his laptop, or his suitcase, or any combination. One day he drove to an office where they were holding an all day meeting. He was on the phone as he got out of the car at 7am and when he came back at the end of the day 5pm or so he found a large puddle of water coming out of the bottom of his truck. It was the A/C sweating. He had left the truck on all day, with the A/C on, keys in the ignition with the doors unlocked....... doh!

[rainman1882]

I have a 1996 F-250 with the 7.3 liter powerstroke diesel. It's very had on the engines to start up and shut down. The turbo needs to have the EGT (Exhaust Gast Temperature) drop before shutting down or you will get deposits on the turbo spindle. This results in costly repairs. A diesel also uses very little fuel at idle. Likewise, they like to warm up and go from there. To start a pickup like mine with a load on without a proper warm up would be suicide for the engine.

The device you were talking about that allows the engine to run while away and then turn off when a designated temp is reached is a "Turbo Nanny", not sure if that is a brand name or generic term. I won't use one as my engine is worth way to much to trust to a machine that could fail.

As far as a cool down time it depends on the air temp and what you were doing prior to stopping. Even after a long trek the temp probe will pull 300 degrees in as little as 10 minutes. The engines do cool remarkably. On a trip across North Dakota on I-94 this last Feb I stopped to take a nap and didn't flip the hi-idle switch (kicks idle from 400 rpm to 1500). Outside air temp was -43 with windchills far exceeding that. My pickup was blowing cold air from the vents within 5 minutes.

My pickup is geared with 4.11 gears and I've been able to pull 21mpg out of it on some trips unloaded. Granted this is awful economy but it's also a 7000 pound pickup that sits high and has large offroad tires. It's possible to eek FE out of the biggest pig.


Hope that helps out with some of the issues surrounding diesels.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by theclencher

This diesel idling thing is a lot of old wive's tales. We've got diesels on the farm, and they get shut down and restarted all the time with no ill effects that I can see.

Normally aspirated, or turbo? Even with turbos, equipment diesels are designed with constant shutdowns/startups in mind, unlike road diesels.

[JoeBob]

The only time I've let a car idle when I've been in line anywhere is if either it was really hot outside (I live in the desert), the AC was on and either I was wearing business clothes or my wife was with me, or my starter was on it's last legs (just replaced one today!)

[Bunger]

Originally Posted by soletek

What blows me away are the people across the street from me, sitting in line to get gas when I'm in the station with the lowest price. I know for a fact that the gas in both stations is delivered by the same truck on the same day out of the same tank. I have watched it deliver on multiple occasions. So much for Techron, whatever that means..

If they really were pumping out of the same tank, it just means that the gas pumped at the unbranded station was lucky enough to have techron in it. Branded gas (Shell, 76, Chevron, etc) can be sold at a non-branded station, as it meets the requirements for the detergent standards, but it would be unlawful for a Chevron station to pump "unbranded" fuel to its customers. (Although, you never know...)

Originally Posted by soletek

Something I learned that is a real eye opener -- after fuel has been created at the refinery it is pumped through huge, extremely long pipe lines to distribution stations; in some cases 100s of miles away. When they pump the different grades of gas and diesel through the same line they don't even separate it. They have worked out a calculated mix ratio they factor in. This is why it is so easy to get contaminated gasoline and/or diesel depending on how close to the end of each slug of fuel you happen to get. Only in certain cases are dividers pushed through the pipeline. They are not put in place to separate the fuels though. These devices are called 'pigs' because of the squealing sound they make as they scrape deposits from the inside of the pipe. Many of these pigs have another task to accomplish. They use ultra-sound to check for cracks in the pipeline and radio back their location when a crack is found.

This is exactly right, but it's really not as bad as it might seem. Pumping 91 octane fuel right after 87 isn't going to harshly effect much, and when they do pump non-combatable fuels, the stuff that gets mixed is sold as "transmix" and will never end up in your vehicle.

[Colin]

Originally Posted by theclencher

If the thing was really being worked hard, like plowing for hours on end, I'd let it idle for a bit before shutdown. Most of these idiots that idle their diesels all the time were not working them that hard. They are equipped with starters!

Not working them hard? It's not exactly easy to tow 80,000 lbs of cargo into a headwind at 70 MPH.

Suppose a guy's got four deliveries to make, plus a stop for lunch and to pay a visit to the schnurdling - he's now starting his engine six times per day rather than once. I'd rather pay a few bucks per day for the fuel burnt idling than to put unnecessary strain on the starter run the risk of coking the bearings.

Colin

[SD26]

Originally Posted by theclencher

I
Even so, starter brushes are dirt cheap, and if the engine isn't being worked hard there should be no threat of coking.

Might be cheap, but, when you use your truck for a living, being without a starter is a good way to loose a lot of money for yourself and your customers that rely on you.

[Wazabi Owner]

Funny you should mention the people idling at the gas pump. Most of these people are the ones who will tear out of the gas station then get on the road and average a minimum of 10mph OVER the speed limit -no matter what the road is. The same people that if you ride with them and they get behind a car doing 2-5mph under the 60-70 mph speed limit you'll hear them say, "Can't this idiot do AT LEAST the speed limit" not even thinking the speed limit is just that, a posted maximum speed which people are allowed to travel.

[1993CivicVX]

Originally Posted by Wazabi Owner

Funny you should mention the people idling at the gas pump. Most of these people are the ones who will tear out of the gas station then get on the road and average a minimum of 10mph OVER the speed limit -no matter what the road is. The same people that if you ride with them and they get behind a car doing 2-5mph under the 60-70 mph speed limit you'll hear them say, "Can't this idiot do AT LEAST the speed limit" not even thinking the speed limit is just that, a posted maximum speed which people are allowed to travel.

Yeah, most people I know are like this. I used to be the same way, too, and still am if I am not trying to save gas.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by 1993CivicVX

Yeah, most people I know are like this. I used to be the same way, too, and still am if I am not trying to save gas.

Funny, I tend to be that way MORE when I'm trying to save gas. Other people going slow in front of me mess up my ability to accelerate efficiently, pulse&glide, take turns without braking, etc.

I do think that many (but certainly not all) speed limits in this corner of the country are too low. There's a road on my way to work that's marked 30mph and heavily enforced, despite being four lanes wide (but with only two travel lanes, then two breakdown lanes, and a sidewalk on one side), with houses set very far off it, even utility poles set six feet off it, few cross roads, etc. As far as I can tell, it's a revenue generator, badly needed by the small town with lots of land and few taxpayers. There's lots of just as extreme roads that I drive.

[jadziasman]

As Master Kan once said: (And if you don't know who he is or why he told Kwai Chang Caine to do it, you're just too young)

Time for you to leave.

Rhode Island is pretty small, ain't it?

[DarbyWalters]

A diesel at idle can hold a air/fuel ratio that is VERY LEAN...80 parts air to 1 part fuel ect. But of course there comes a point that it is better to turn off a diesel...ot buy a "Turbo Timer" like mentioned above that lets the engine run to cool down EGT for 1-3 minutes.

[Wazabi Owner]

There are places where I get that way too. Routinely in the 35-45mph range. My car wants to lug in an inefficient way at 35-40mph. I have to switch it to manual but it gets much less mpgs than if they just went 45mph. I am in the wrong though as the speed limit is 35mph in this particular area (50 is what almost everyone does through there). During the busy time of the day I do the 35mph and just suck it up. They set the speed limit 35mph there for a reason.

Originally Posted by theholycow

Funny, I tend to be that way MORE when I'm trying to save gas. Other people going slow in front of me mess up my ability to accelerate efficiently, pulse&glide, take turns without braking, etc.

I do think that many (but certainly not all) speed limits in this corner of the country are too low. There's a road on my way to work that's marked 30mph and heavily enforced, despite being four lanes wide (but with only two travel lanes, then two breakdown lanes, and a sidewalk on one side), with houses set very far off it, even utility poles set six feet off it, few cross roads, etc. As far as I can tell, it's a revenue generator, badly needed by the small town with lots of land and few taxpayers. There's lots of just as extreme roads that I drive.

[8307c4]

I will say I believe it takes a unique breed of person to be a hypermiler.
As such I also believe hypermilers tend to think outside of the mold, a very unusual but highly effective tactic. Unfortunately if everyone were to do it, the world as we know it would fall apart, I can almost guarantee it.

That having been said:
What kills me is all the folks in the drive-throughs...

Did you know:
1. In Europe, drive throughs are almost non-existent?
That is correct, it is considered wasteful (which it is).

2. It is as fast if not faster to go inside?
Also true, I usually park and go inside, the lines in front of the registers tend to be shorter than the wait in the DT... Many times have I gone inside and been on my way OUT of the parking lot as I watched who was where: The car that was last in line at the DT as I was parking still hadn't got through.

Now don't all the fuel wasters start going inside vs. driving through now, as
that would ruin my secret little scheme that I've been pulling off for many years.

[Wazabi Owner]

Originally Posted by 8307c4

That having been said:
What kills me is all the folks in the drive-throughs...

So true! I NEVER go through the drive through.

- First and foremost, it's a fuel waster.

- Second, just like you said - most of the time it is quicker to walk in.

- Third - don't take this the wrong way, a lot of people (not all) work in fast food for a reason. I go in to make sure my order is right, that way I can fix it right there on the spot.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by 8307c4

Now don't all the fuel wasters start going inside vs. driving through now, as that would ruin my secret little scheme that I've been pulling off for many years.

Don't worry, I won't. I'd rather wait ten minutes sitting in the comfort of my car with my climate control and my stereo than standing in line. That's a personal choice of waste.

[opelgt73]

Originally Posted by theholycow

Don't worry, I won't. I'd rather wait ten minutes sitting in the comfort of my car with my climate control and my stereo than standing in line. That's a personal choice of waste.

Me too. I mean I am all for saving gas. But most cars consume .3 gal/hour at idle, thats about 2 cents per minute. I don't mind paying for that convenience.