Idle Aire

And the phone, you could buy the package that came with the cable, phone line, and a cheap phone....

 

I use idle air at breezewood pa flying j. It is 1.89 or something per hour now and they give you the window adapter free. I only use it for air conditioning. I'd rather use that then idle my truck or figure out my air conditioner out the window. I don't venture south enough to warrant buying a full blown apu and I use an espar bunk heater in the winter. I like it, sort of a treat for me.

 

Back when it became obvious the states did not trucks to idle it was a great tool to use. You bought a window adapter for $10 to fit your make of tractor [ you could exchange it if you got a different truck]. The basic cost was around $10-12 per 10 hour use and it included a/c or heat your control, tv channels and internet service. The previous replies were correct about unwanted odors coming through the vents as they were not being filtered properly which could make drivers sick. They seemed to be installed closer to the restaurants thus forcing non-users to park farther away from the buildings. Also if there were no parking spots left you had to fight with the attendants to be able to park in used IdleAire spots.

 

I used to use the idleair at paulsboro nj years ago but since GT TOMCAT showed me how to get porn on my fone I've quit using idleair .

 

I think IdleAir was like $1.25 when it first can out then they raised it to $1.85 then when up to $2.25 plus local taxes us fighting with the attendant for parking a when you did not want to use the system. Then APUs came out. I always used the example, imagine paying 2.25 per hour to heat or cool your home. That would be $54 a day and $1,620 a month. That a little pricey for heat and a/c.

My 2017 Freightliner with full emissions now has Detroit Optimized Idle system. It will start engine for heat or a/c and battery charging and engine oil temp. Detroit has this on the S60 years ago.

Now it's back on new Emissions trucks but it can also tell when DPF is full and Regen automatically when parked. So maybe we don't need APUs

 

I used it maybe twice back in the 90's. Neither time was the ac capable of keeping the truck cool in upper 90's temps, and the cat 5 lan connection to a shared dial up router was less than useless, even in a time when dial up was the standard. And iirc the channels offered over the analog RF connection was very limited or weak as well

 

One morning going West on I 40 I passed a truck and it had about 40 feet of park& view cable dragging behind it!

 

I probably still have my park&view cable on a cable reel somewhere

 

The company had bad management and could not keep up with demand and current tech so they pretty much done, not sure who owns them now