List Your companies idling policy here

Melton Truck Lines

30 min shut down, i was told acceptable idle time is 1% or less.

APU's, bunk heaters and inverters.

 

With APU the idle time becomes a non-issue.

Since every company is going to have an idle policy of sorts, then best thing to do is find a company with APU, so better topic would be "Which companies have APU on all their trucks" cause no company is going to say its ok to idle 100%.

 

1% or less? Impossible! I idle more than that just rolling through traffic, or building up air pressure after being shut down for awhile!

 

Well, rolling thru traffic isn't really considered isle time, is it?

Also, 1% of an 11 hour drive is 6.6 minutes. 1% of a 24 hour period is 14.4 minutes. If you can't build pressure in under a minute, you've got a problem with your air system. Our APU's keep the engine warm enough to significantly reduce idleing warm up time, and with today's engines, you do not need to idle for cool down at the end of your drive.

less than 1% seems fair to me, we have no need to idle. I had my bunk heater go out before and the solution was "take it to the shop and get a hotel room until it's fixed."

 

Ever been through "rush hour" traffic in D.C., or Cincinnati? Very easy at times to idle at a dead stop for up to ten minutes at times (2 minutes here, move up 35 feet, another 3 minutes...you see how this goes).

If the "fuel bonus" is tied to maintaining less that 1% idle time, its BS in my opinion. But what do I know? My outfit doesn't bother with a "fuel bonus", but rather focuses on driver safety and comfort.

 

Our fuel bonus is based on MPG and fuel stop compliance.

And no, I've not been to DC in 2 years OTR nor have I ever been north/east of Pittsburgh. Hopefully, my luck doesn't run out any time soon, I plan on keeping it that way!

 

So this explains why sometimes you can actually pass one of these trucks on the open road, someone exceeded their idle limit.

 

LOL! My policy IS, if boss keeps me out over night... Truck doesn't go below 180 deg. regardless of the weather. If I get home nightly, truck gets shut off, and everyone is happy.

 

um, yeah, sure, let's see: Mercedes has an idle cool down expectation for both gasoline and diesel based turbo engines, VAG Group (Porsche, Audi, VW, Lamborghini, SEAT, Skoda) has an idle cool down expectation for gas and diesel engines. Volvo has an idle cool down expectation for al turbo gas and diesel engines, Mack has an idle cool down expectation for all MP7 and MP8 engines, PACCAR has an idle cool down expectation for the MX engines, Cummins has an idle cool down expectation for all diesel engines, regardless of vehicle class, Int'l has an idle cool down expectation. While these systems can be turned off by the user/owner, it is strongly recommended that they be used to prolong engine, turbo and emissions equipment life. In fact if I force shutdown, override my idle cool down on my '09 Mack (or our other '13 Mack's), it will throw 3 different CEL's related to the emissions equipment.

 

Feel free to share where you got your info from, I've been looking and can't find anything.

also, no need for idle cool down is what I've been told several times.

one more point. We're talking big truck engines, right?