So if the company is #####ing about idle…..

Holiday weekend, loads are scarce...
My PTA was 1230 today (Friday) and my next load picks up 80 miles away at 1230 tomorrow.
It delivers on Sunday, and can't deliver early, and that is another 80 miles.

Guess what? The truck is going to have some serious idling time this weekend.
Pretty much continuous because I really can't deal with OptiIdle. Run the truck with the AC on full blast for 5 or 6 minutes until it just cools down, then shut the truck off for 5-10 minutes until it get very warm, then repeat the process over and over and over again.
Always going from too hot to barely cool enough.
And how is that good for the engine and starter motor, starting and stopping several times an hour?

No, I'll just keep it running and keep a constant temperature.

Swift won't use APU's because they are not cost efficient. They would rather rag on the drivers about idling time, even though the trucks are set to not idle more than 5 minutes unless it is hot or cold enough. And Swift is the one setting the temperature limitations.
They want to have their cake and eat it too.

 

Years ago, JB Hunt used to have a monthly bonus calculated on both overspeed and idle percentage. I followed it one year in June, but about halfway through the month ended up down south and abandoned even trying. From that time forward, I always achieved the bonus in March-May, then in Sept-Nov. On the months that were either too hot or too cold, I idled, and ran hammer-down all the time on the highway. My stats from one month to the next were pretty obvious, too. Once I started doing Canadian dedicated, I went for it only from April-June, then Sept-Nov.

 

I had a friend who pretty much ran like he wanted to and idled as much as he wanted to. Dispatcher says, "hey man. You ain't gonna get a bonus like that." He replies, "I get a bonus every day when I run my truck the way I want to."
The conversation ended quickly.

 

I pissed off a company yrs ago when the a/c quit in s/w Texas in August on a weekend lay over.

temps were over 100 and no breeze so I idled and they blew up the Quaalcom.

had already informed them of the a/c being out, next step was to declare it a safety item.

no sleep makes me an unsafe driver. didn't go over well but they had me in the shop at the truck stop next day.

was also told I have an attitude problem. WHO ME ???

 

Just ask them if you’re doing a good job, in relation to their customers service, safe driving and work ethic.

If they have no complaints, then tell them you need 10 hours of comfortable rest in the truck to perform the task safely, or offer them the option to inconvenience everyone by having them pay for a motel room.

Any more pushback beyond that - ask them if they would fix their AC in summer if it was not working, or if their family is receptive to the idea of setting the thermostat at 95 degrees to save the household money.

Just be polite, and firm.

 

PA and NY have ridiculous anti-idle laws. Maybe your employer is aware of those. Either way, no reasonable person or company could expect you to not have HVAC in harsh weather conditions. I'd find a better company that runs in better areas if I were you. You could also get a room too if it came down to it.

 

Have you figured out yet if you have an APU? I had one, or at least something like it, on my Freightliner at USXpress. As far as I know, it didn't actually generate it's own power. I think it was basically a separate unit powered by additional batteries that charged while I was driving and then powered the truck after the engine was turned off.

I had to use it with opti-idle. That's just a system that automatically restarts the engine when the truck's battery drops below a certain level and then turns it back off once it's recharged. This allows a driver to continue powering the truck when the engine is off without killing the battery.

If I didn't have the opti-idle set, my APU, or whatever it was, would run out of juice and stop working until I manually restarted the truck. Now that I'm thinking back on it, I actually had to have their shop raise the voltage level that triggered opti-idle to restart the engine because the APU batteries were going dead before the truck's battery went low enough to force an engine start.

 

Tell your DBL to turn off AC and sit in his car all day answering his phone for company business.

First DBL i had didn’t say anything about idle, second, the kid, about 20, argued with me all the time, i told him keep me running, i signed on for mileage pay not fuel bonus.

 

Went through the same thing with JB one summer in Iowa. Yeah, it's 110° in the cab, and you expect my 'attitude' to be GOOD??? I threatened to ride the dog home before they relented, and allowed me to have it looked at in the shop.

BTW, did you know that SOMETIMES all you need to get the AC compressor to work is to unplug that plug on the electronic clutch? When you do, it stays on full-time, but in a heat wave that's ok......