Low-Mile Ford Diesel With Tons of Idle Time

Look What Happens to a Low-Mile Ford Diesel With Tons of Idle Time and No Maintenance,

Thought I would share article I ran across
ford diesel

A friend of mine who was a powertrain engineer at GM told me their number one root cause of diesel warranty issues is excessive idling. The primary culprits are contractors, who will leave their trucks idling on job sites.

I seldom let my truck idle once it has warmed up. And I almost never get out of a vehicle I'm driving without the keys in hand, even for a few seconds. I can't remember the last time I locked my keys inside a vehicle.

Yea I don't get the idling thing with diesel trucks,UPS drivers shut off their trucks whenever they stop the truck.

If I leave my truck idle I set the rpm up a 1000.

Yes, I have wondered about that, I asked a driver once if they have more starter maintenance. He said yes probably, but it's company policy. It probably has keyless ignition like most modern vehicles, so it won't start unless the fob is in the cab. The owners manual for our JD 4600 tractor says do not leave it idle, it only wastes fuel and causes carbon buildup. I try to not leave it idle over a minute or 2 if it's warmed up.

Hmmm I thought the reason people buy diesel pickups is to leave them idling all the time to announce that they own a diesel pickup.

I can understand that.

A few years ago when we put up a metal building (brand name Cleary) the crew that put it up had an F350 Ford diesel truck with an inverter to run their power tools. They just let the truck idle all day to run their tools.

If you must idle them then it is best to run the RPM up to maintain coolant temps and combustion chamber temps . As a diesel engine will cool way down when idling to the point of incomplete fuel burn and this leads to carbon build up and cylinder wall washing along with oil contamination . In days gone by for us that ran semi's on the road when winter set in and ya needed sleep before you fell across the steering wheel of fell in to the old bunk house you set the hand throttle to find the sweet spot where the engine smoothed out and would not rattle your filling out , this would do two things (1) it made for a good nights sleep and (2) kept the engine temp at of slightly above 180 degrees along with full oil pressure . Old Detroit's would drop oil pressure way down at idle but off idle they would hold around 40 psi. One could always tell when someone did not keep there engine speed up and temps up come morning when they went to pull out as they would blow white smoke for miles burning off excess fuel and oil build up . You could also tell where the cold running detroit spent the night due to the huge puddle of oil and excess fuel was layen

It really makes me wonder who really needs a diesel pickup. I see lawn mowing service people that have a 16 ft car trailer and a Duramax. There are people that trade every 2 years. One guy i know has traded Duramax's every 10,000 miles for the last 3 or 4 trucks and none of what i mentioned pull anything but a skid loader very occasionally. IDK.

(quoted from post at 04:34:39 09/02/21) Look What Happens to a Low-Mile Ford Diesel With Tons of Idle Time and No Maintenance

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I would venture to guess that the "no maintenance" part is the issue here, MUCH more so than the fact it's spent a lot of time idling.

I would ASSUME the automatic oil change indicator would have taken into account the duty cycle of the engine and requested an oil change LONG before things got that bad.

If it DIDN'T it sure is a flawed system!

If it DID signal the need for an oil change and it was ignored by the operator that's another matter!

Its instilled in old diesels owners heads I doubt you will ever change them...

well thats the outcome of idling, wanna wear out an engine fast then just keep it idling. typical oil field practice also. absolute worst thing for the cam lobes and lifters. at least have a fast idle set up on it helps. i have never idled my duramax yet other than cool down on hot days with hood open after pulling trailer.

What is instilled in diesel owners heads that you
will never change?

Or at least daddy is making payments on one.

(quoted from post at 13:44:10 09/02/21) It really makes me wonder who really needs a diesel pickup. I see lawn mowing service people that have a 16 ft car trailer and a Duramax. There are people that trade every 2 years. One guy i know has traded Duramax's every 10,000 miles for the last 3 or 4 trucks and none of what i mentioned pull anything but a skid loader very occasionally. IDK.

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LOL, come to Florida where you will find daily driver, 4x4 one ton crew cab diesel duallys. Jacked up 12" over stock with 42" tall mud tires, a gazillion offroad lights. A cap on the back and no trailer hitch. The underside has led strip lights to show off all the shiny chrome bits that have replaced the stock bits.
Never pulls anything nor been on a dirt road.

Hey George,.

You would hurt a diesel engine less if you shot it with buck shots,

Guido.

Would bet the oil never never got changed... Its not my job!!!After the oil broke down, bad things started happening.

I have a fleet of bucket trucks for the construction company. The idle hours exceed road hours. We Chang e oil by the hours of service not miles.

(quoted from post at 10:04:28 09/02/21) If you must idle them then it is best to run the RPM up to maintain coolant temps and combustion chamber temps . As a diesel engine will cool way down when idling to the point of incomplete fuel burn and this leads to carbon build up and cylinder wall washing along with oil contamination . In days gone by for us that ran semi's on the road when winter set in and ya needed sleep before you fell across the steering wheel of fell in to the old bunk house you set the hand throttle to find the sweet spot where the engine smoothed out and would not rattle your filling out , this would do two things (1) it made for a good nights sleep and (2) kept the engine temp at of slightly above 180 degrees along with full oil pressure . Old Detroit's would drop oil pressure way down at idle but off idle they would hold around 40 psi. One could always tell when someone did not keep there engine speed up and temps up come morning when they went to pull out as they would blow white smoke for miles burning off excess fuel and oil build up . You could also tell where the cold running detroit spent the night due to the huge puddle of oil and excess fuel was layen

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That holds true for older engines, however most of these newer ones do not do well with that procedure. Our 15L ISX and X 15 Cummins specifically state in the manual to not high idle the engine. Doing so will inhibit a passive re-gen and cause problems there. These engines have tighter clearances, and do not slobber oil either. The 15L Detroits we have came to us with an auto elevate feature in the ECM, and it would automatically elevate engine idle when needed. Two years later Detroit came to us and had the auto elevate deactivated and said it was counterproductive to what they were needing the engine to do. The theory they have is that when running at an elevated idle, the gas flow is increased, as is the fuel rate. The combination of this adds particulates to the DPF quicker, and therefore shortens its life. One line of work at our business uses a lot idle time, it is a killer on these units. Oddly enough, our Ford Diesel Pickups handle this much better than the bigger engines. It is not unusual for us to get 300,000 trouble free miles or 16,000 trouble free hours out of one of our pickups. Im not sampling data on these experiences from a small number, we have over 200 pickups, 225 plus truck tractors, and around 300 engines on trailered equipment rangine from 99 HP Kubota industrial engines to 3000 HP Cats and Cummins engines.