Parking truck on home time

you have options..........

1) carry the "rosary" and say the rosary 7 times........

2) light a fire under the truck

3) run a very long extension cord from your house to the truck

4) go to the truck every 6 hours, start it up, let it run at high idle for 4 hours, then go back home.


5) (my personal favorite), don't worry about it, call the auto club for a jump start.







but seriously, don't worry about it. you ain't gonnabe home long enough for anything to happen.

either that, or find a place to drop the trailer, and bob tail home and plug in your truck.

 

Newer over the road trucks aren't as sensitive to the cold. plus like was said earlier if you home 2 days every 3 weeks your lucky

 

My previous truck, a 2000 Freightliner Century Class would sit at our local truckstop. I don't run hard in winter as I'm pushing snow quite a bit, but I do run. I never plugged it in, nowhere to plug in. I had problems starting towards the end of winter but that turned out to be my starter dying a slow death. At worst, I'd go down once a week and start it and run it up to temp, same for the reefer. I also put some anti-gel in the tanks until I was sure the fuel was winter blend.
I don't think I'd get too concerned with it.

 

Batteries are built differently than just a few years ago. They have a better life expectancy that those from ages past! It's really not necessary to plug it in if the temps stay above the 20* mark, but when you start talking the minus temps yes you might have problems and that vampire stealing radio and other stuff that might be draining the battery could be the problem also. But as said earlier fuel supplements are need and it would help to clean all battery connectors to be sure of good connections. Clean is forgotten in maintainance as a lot of the younger mechanics think tight is good. Yeah in sex but in electrical, clean is best!

 

Clean is good in sex too! lol!

 

Most of the newer trucks will turn on automatically to charge the batteries and also to warm the truck if it gets below a certain temp. You can also set it so that it will start the truck and cool it down. It really has to stay below zero though for you to start having problems. I didn't think Pa was really that cold. I mean I know its cold but not Minnesota, Wyoming cold! You do need to make sure you are running the proper fluids and most importantly don't set the trailer brakes. If they get wet and then it dips down into the really cold temps they will freeze solid and there is nothing you are going to do about it! I actually saw a guy come off of hometime and he had set his trailer brakes, there was a rain/ice storm and then a deep freeze the past two days he was home. I know this because we were shutdown in the same truck stop he had his truck at. Well he showed up in GeoMetro and I kid you not he hooked a chain to his semi and tried to snatch the truck with his Geo. 20 seconds and 1 bumper later he was still in the same parking slot. Imagine that. The whole little metro came off the ground on the first snatch and on the second snatch the bumper came flying off and smashed across the radiator of his truck! We actually have the end results on video somewhere. I guess I should have posted this on the "dumbest things you have seen a driver do" thread, but I guess it all ties in to this one too. Sorry to ramble on, hope you got the point! You should be fine!

 

I was gonna say that as well.