Leaving an engine running - risk of damage?

[bitchstewie]

If I take my Freelander 2 (2.2L diesel lump of some sort) and after a decent drive which would thoroughly warm it up, I leave it running for a couple of hours whilst parked, am I likely to do any damage to the engine?

I don't know why tbh but I've always been led to believe that letting an engine idle for a long time is not a good thing.

[shambolic]

Do it all the time after a days shooting to dry out dogs, gear etc while we clear away quads, guns, shot birds etc from the days shoot.
Never an issue in our old Mazda Tribute or others defenders etc

[Mr Sparkle]

It idle the cam shaft wear more than at say 2000 rpm, and also cars with DPFs might start to soot up if used a lot at low power but I don't think there is any real risk of problems.

[Fish981]

According to LUK leaving an engine idling for extended times kills the DMF.

[bitchstewie]

It's used daily on a 40 mile commute up and down a dual carriageway so gets plenty of "foot down clean out" driving

[steveo3002]

as said oil flow isnt what it would be when driving along , chances are its not going to fall apart any time soon because of it

[morgrp]

As already said - idling for long periods means the oil pressure remains low and can cause engine wear - in particular the top end

[littleredrooster]

Police/HATO vehicles frequently idle for >6 hours at a time at incidents to keep the lightbars lit. Doesn't do them that much harm - 200,000 miles plus on some vehicles without major failures.

[calibrax]

I'm shocked. Thread has been online for over 30 mins and still no sign of the tree-huggers moaning about how terrible it is for the environment. Ah hold on, maybe they aren't home yet because they are all car sharing in a Prius doing 56mph...

[bitchstewie]

littleredrooster said:

Police/HATO vehicles frequently idle for >6 hours at a time at incidents to keep the lightbars lit. Doesn't do them that much harm - 200,000 miles plus on some vehicles without major failures.

That is a good point, but equally they probably have deeper pockets and access to cheaper maintenance (well maybe not cheaper but it's not coming out of their own pocket IYKWIM).

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

bhstewie said:

I leave it running for a couple of hours whilst parked,

I'm more curious why you would do that?

[blueST]

bhstewie said:

That is a good point, but equally they probably have deeper pockets and access to cheaper maintenance (well maybe not cheaper but it's not coming out of their own pocket IYKWIM).

For the HATO ones, the maintenance schedule is just the standard mileage related servicing that any owner is obliged to do, so the many hours spent idling are not accounted for. It is not unusual for the engines to be running 12 hours plus a day. The cars are still reaching well over 150,000 miles before they start to become troublesome, some soldier on past the 200,000 mark.

Funnily enough, there is another thread somewhere on here with a US Ford police vehicle catalogue, they advertise the cars having an engine hours gauge, so they can take the idling time into account for maintenace purposes.

[Monty Python]

Only to your wallet...and if it get's stolen your insurance will probably be invalid.

Edited by Monty Python on Wednesday 14th November 18:39

[jbi]

if you leave it idling... isn't it a good idea to put some load on the engine?

i.e run the heater/radio/heated screen's/seats