Would you work for a company with no APU?

My company uses the opti idle system. Kind of a pita, but it works. Last company I was with had a mix of those battery pack apus and regular ones.

 

And if anyone is wondering what not having an APU actually costs them there’s no need for rough estimates. Your idle hours and idle fuel use are available on your ecm or on the dash screen on a lot of newer trucks.

 

And while you are getting it cleaned you are not drving- meaning it's downtime.

Add that in as well.

 

My company lets me idle as I see fit, so I do.

Many of the liquid tanker outfits don't have APU. If they put one in I would use it.

My comfort and safety come first. An uncomfortable driver doesn't sleep well.

A driver who doesn't sleep well gets progressively more tired.

A tired driver does stupid stuff.

And yes, I started in a 1982 R Model Mack with no A/C. Just the roof vent and the 4 blade fan to blow the hot air in the cab more forcefully into your already melting face. Never again!

 

I didn't do chemistry in school, its whatever the nasty stuff from exhausts that kills people is.

 

Well, I was making a joke about getting it cleaned every month. But since you’re serious I’m curious how that $3k a month in maintenance would be broken down. And for me to burn 600 extra gallons idling I’d have to idle 20 hours a day all month long. At 900 rpm I’m at a gallon to 1.2 gallons per hour. Even running a pto and powering a blower, with mine at 1100 rpm and a load on the engine the highest it ever got was 3.2 gallons per hour.

Edit: And unless you’re hauling general freight there’s more to figure in to the real cost of an apu vs the true expense of not having one.

 

The way I look at it is, engine hours means wear and tear. The less you idle, which in itself is more damaging to the engine per hour if not higher idling (and lets face it, who can trust the new breed to know how or why to do that). It's all adding up to repair bills more quickly than using an APU for the same purpose.

 

Right, and like I said in my other post you can get your actual idling hours and actual idling gallons from your ecm, there’s no need to estimate based on mpg’s and monthly miles. The post I replied to said not having an apu will cost you $3-4K per month in fuel and repairs. So based on his claim that’s $36-48k per year in added cost because you don’t have a $12k apu hanging off your truck. That means a company like Swift is wasting over $700 million per year by not having apu’s based on his estimates.

And there are other factors. If you’re in a weight sensitive operation that extra 500 pounds adds up to a lot of lost revenue over the course of a year. Or like my old company job, if the trucks were made longer to have the frame space for an apu then we’d no longer be legal for Canada and we wouldn’t meet the offtrack requirements for Idaho. The issue isn’t cut and dry for everyone and just because you don’t have one doesn’t mean your lighting hundred dollar bills on fire every night when you go to bed.

 

The truck I had came with a piece of paper that stated I am allowed to be 450 lbs over because of the APU.

Weigh stations know this, I was hauling several times 500 over on a set of axles and nothing happened. Maybe google APU weight exemption if you don't believe me.

 

I believe you, try using that piece of paper when you’re already running on an extended weight permit like I am and many others are.