diesels are they ok be left to tick over for a longish time?

[bullitinhead]

Our transits have a hard life if there not going up and down the M1 at super sonic speed, they are sat idleing on site at up to 12 hours at a time, some have extras like external lights, some just used as a messing space for paper work and tea. Used 24 hours a day 100k+ miles a year some of them. They dont general die from engine problems just worn out aftrr a few years generally not the engines.

Also I was rented a astra estate not that long ago, when stopped in traffic the mpg meter swapped to litres per hour, it looked like 0.1 lph were consumed when static this was the 2.0l diesel estate. Which I think is not a lot ,could idle for days if not weeks.


Bullit

[Mave]

If you're camping, can't you live without the high consumption gadgets rather than subjecting all the other campers to an hour of the sound of your engine?

[MintSprint]

Willy Nilly said:

Just about the worst thing you can do to a diesel engine is let it idle.

^^^^^ This.

Much MUCH worse than, say filling it with petrol, running it on unfiltered used chipfat, or driving it through deep water so that it hydraulics, or anything.


Letting it idle will kill it stone dead in seconds.

[Welshbeef]

Mave said:

If you're camping, can't you live without the high consumption gadgets rather than subjecting all the other campers to an hour of the sound of your engine?

Lol didn't spot that - imagine some considerate chap starting up the car 3am as he is a little cold

[curlie467]

I see it's the usual no one can read thread. He is only on about leaving it for an hour or so, not for a day or a week.
It will be fine op.

[Sheepshanks]

Mave said:

If you're camping, can't you live without the high consumption gadgets rather than subjecting all the other campers to an hour of the sound of your engine?

I would imagine campers would be more concerned than most about pollution - there's a quite a movement building against diesel pollution so leaving one idling for an hour on a campsite is probably not going to win the OP many friends.

[Rickyy]

Surely a car battery has the capacity to charge a few phones and to start itself afterwards? Seems a bit OTT.

There are plenty of power banks for mobile devices that will charge an iPhone fully from one mains/12vdc charge!

[Sheepshanks]

Rickyy said:

Surely a car battery has the capacity to charge a few phones and to start itself afterwards? Seems a bit OTT.

It's surprising how fickle they are - car batteries are designed to give a load of current for a short time, not for slow steady discharge.

Diesel's are especially susceptible as they have high compression ratios. My BIL's Touareg wouldn't start after an hour sitting in it with engine off at a services (so just had a good run) while he snoozed with the radio on and the 'phones on charge.

[R33dk]

[quote=Who me ?]R33 - at work we used to run a Clarke conversion transit crewbus- eight seats plus heated handwash/hot water urn and microwave. It was microwave or urn, so on the way to a job, urn& handwash were filled up and turned on .On site ,it could be left there for a couple of days ,with shifts arriving /leaving in other vehicles, and to keep the utility battery pack charged with urn on ,it had to be left running.Proper Ford approved modification, so the fact that engine would be run a lot on idle must have been approved. Exhaust did smoke/pong a bit for a short distance on road. We had a variety of other Fords, from Fiesta /Transit Connect to Focus estates, and on night standby, they could stay on for up to 12 hours. I used to prefer my Transit LWB/Hi top for this sort of work . Taker it for a run to get engine warmed up , and then hunker down ,hoping nothing would crop up . problem was that on colder nights, the engine cooled down on idle. Unlike petrol engines that stay hot on idle, as properly cooled diesel will loose heat when not working. We used to keep our vans for approx 80k /three years and they did spend a lot of time idling, with us relaxing in the warmth. Didn't seem to do them any harm.
[/quote]

Yeah we had similar transits with the inverters ect 6 seats, microwave , wash basins.
I did find that if you were grabbing a kip it was best to stick on the diesel heater or (as was often the case) that didn't work we would sit up front with foot on the throttle to get some heat in it.
Dk

[Second Best]

Holy thread resurrection.

I am speaking to you now from the back of my car. To cut a very long story short, I'm stuck on a business trip and can't get a hotel, the easiest thing for me was to grab a sleeping bag on expenses and spend the night camped in the car. I'm within the drink-drive limit and there's nobody around to complain about the noise of a diesel idling. Be interested to see how much fuel I've used when I wake up at 9am.

Thankfully I'm in a rather large car with a built-in fridge, tinted rear windows and lots of heater controls so I'm actually very comfortable. I have my phones on charge and I have a 230V inverter to power my laptop so I've been surfing YouTube.

Edited by Second Best on Friday 20th September 02:01

[Don Roque]

It won't use much fuel at all. I sometimes flick through the menu on a night in my work car when I'm sitting with nothing do. Even in freezing conditions with the air conditioner on and heater turned up to prevent the cabin cooling, it tends to sit around 0.1 or 0.2 gallon fuel use per hour.

I read this thread when it was new. Since then, I have continued to use my work car and van in the same fashion. Often driven very hard from cold, with the heat of the tyres being the deciding factor of how much it gets pushed. Often left idling for hours with a load of aniciliary kit going. Never suffered any mechanical issues doing this, and rarely even notice the car regen.

The last time I had an actual engine part failure on a work car was when the alternator failed on a 1.3 Astra H about seven or eight years ago. In short, I wouldn't worry.

[The Mad Monk]

Second Best said:

Holy thread resurrection.

I am speaking to you now from the back of my car. To cut a very long story short, I'm stuck on a business trip and can't get a hotel, the easiest thing for me was to grab a sleeping bag on expenses and spend the night camped in the car. I'm within the drink-drive limit and there's nobody around to complain about the noise of a diesel idling. Be interested to see how much fuel I've used when I wake up at 9am.

Thankfully I'm in a rather large car with a built-in fridge, tinted rear windows and lots of heater controls so I'm actually very comfortable. I have my phones on charge and I have a 230V inverter to power my laptop so I've been surfing YouTube.

Edited by Second Best on Friday 20th September 02:01

How did it go?

[Megaflow]

The Mad Monk said:

Second Best said:

Holy thread resurrection.

I am speaking to you now from the back of my car. To cut a very long story short, I'm stuck on a business trip and can't get a hotel, the easiest thing for me was to grab a sleeping bag on expenses and spend the night camped in the car. I'm within the drink-drive limit and there's nobody around to complain about the noise of a diesel idling. Be interested to see how much fuel I've used when I wake up at 9am.

Thankfully I'm in a rather large car with a built-in fridge, tinted rear windows and lots of heater controls so I'm actually very comfortable. I have my phones on charge and I have a 230V inverter to power my laptop so I've been surfing YouTube.

Edited by Second Best on Friday 20th September 02:01

How did it go?

He gassed himself in the middle of the night...

[Dalmahoy]

Refinery I used to work at had Citroen C2's as pool cars.
During the bad winter of 2010, I noticed the footwell was filling up with water due to the snow being dragged into the thing with windows steaming up as a result.

Thought it would be a good idea to leave it idling with the heater and fan on full for a while to try and dry the thing out.
This was at 11.45 on a Friday with me finishing at 12.00.

Turned up on Monday morning - and the C2 was still sitting idling.

Inside was bone dry though!

Car never missed a beat and the fuel gauge hardly moved.

[loggo]

My 7.5 litre Volvo engine ticks over at around 1.4 litres per hour. It has a 300 l tank. Should take over for about 2 1/2 weeks then !

[Evercross]

loggo said:

My 7.5 litre Volvo engine ticks over at around 1.4 litres per hour. It has a 300 l tank. Should take over for about 2 1/2 weeks then !

You're not this guy by any chance?!...

[skyrover]

Idling puts the highest loads on the valve-train, and subsequently the highest wear.

It would take a hell of a lot of idling to do any significant damage though. I would be more worried about clogging the DPF on modern diesel.

[Second Best]

Megaflow said:

The Mad Monk said:

Second Best said:

Holy thread resurrection.

I am speaking to you now from the back of my car. To cut a very long story short, I'm stuck on a business trip and can't get a hotel, the easiest thing for me was to grab a sleeping bag on expenses and spend the night camped in the car. I'm within the drink-drive limit and there's nobody around to complain about the noise of a diesel idling. Be interested to see how much fuel I've used when I wake up at 9am.

Thankfully I'm in a rather large car with a built-in fridge, tinted rear windows and lots of heater controls so I'm actually very comfortable. I have my phones on charge and I have a 230V inverter to power my laptop so I've been surfing YouTube.

Edited by Second Best on Friday 20th September 02:01

How did it go?

He gassed himself in the middle of the night...

You’ll be pleased/disappointed to know that I am still alive and had actually quite a comfortable evenings sleep. I woke up just after 9 and went to a local Maccas to wash my face and brush my teeth. Plus I got a McMuffin too.

I filled up the car earlier. It had covered just over 100 miles and cost £31 to fill up, including the night of idling. Considering the car gets about 27mpg combined (Mercedes R-class), my 8 hours of idling burned about a gallon and a half and cost me a tenner.

For those who care why, I was on a secure site and if I left the site I’d have to check back in, which would mean another car search. I did this job as a favour so I used my personal car, and I wasn’t happy getting it searched. My fuel bill is covered until I get home next week and I’ve been exercising the lardy Merc today to get the engine and exhaust nice and hot.

[Wills2]

I don't understand why you had to idle the engine? Was it -10c outside?