Engine hours vs Engine miles

An ecm can tell you many things if the mechanic knows his stuff. Key being the mechanic. And the guy needs to know how to interpret what he is looking at.

 

Idle time, PTO time etc., there are many circumstances when the engine may be running but the truck is stationary. An extreme example is the oil fields on the north slope of Alaska, those engines run 24/7 unless the truck is inside the barn.

 

So are we trying to say idle time does not wear on the engine and lubrication components? ... only drive time? Okay.

To my way of thinking, a truck is two parts. The engine and the body/drive train. Miles wears on one, engine hours wears on the other, regardless what it's doing.

 

Our 2011 glider has 1.7million kms on it so about a million miles and if i remember correctly it shows like 20,000 hours because when we bought it, it had that after 5 minute idle it would auto shut off the engine

 

The information I shared from our FFE truck came directly off it's ECM.

It will tell you everything.

I hate to stick on the question of miles versus total engine time.

Maybe it will help if the rephrasing is something like this.... was this engine (Whatever it is, just hypothetical) abused by allowed to idle 24/7 for a week at a time and not driven? Or was it abused by driven at 100 plus miles an hour constantly and shut off without the necessary cool down of the turbo etc.

Engines react to being treated well, and the best thing you can do to a engine is to allow it to work in it's sweet spot at highway speed. If you took a vehicle, any kind of vehicle.. parked it and did not drive it at all it literally begins to decompose.

30,000 hours on a engine is a life time plus. Ive had some tractors that were a million plus miles and those were always memorable to me because the wear and tear on them combined with a tired engine made for a less than enjoyable driving time. Such as trying to get into top gear and stay there only to fall off torque and then buck and lug requiring a downshift on every tiny little mound in the roadway. Back and forth and back and forth. Wears out the driver in a hour.

 

I can tell you guys why it's important and yes the numbers I gave you is pretty accurate for an OTR truck under normal circumstances. With the increase of APU usage I could see those numbers change slightly. Anyway, let's take a real world example on a group of trucks my last employer (Freightliner dealer) took on trade. They were Peterbilt 379's, short hood, CAT C-13 with Ultra-shifts...all were in the 400,000 mile range and in decent shape. I hooked up the first one and noticed 22,000 hours....ended up that was the lowest one in the group. I told the salesman he better wholesale them or sell them out of state because they were worn out. He sold the first one to a local seed dealer and ended up taking it back within a month to save the relationship with this customer after they experienced many engine issues. The point is, these trucks had a ton of hours versus miles so a knowledgeable buyer would've stayed away as the only way that can happen is by idling or PTO usage and this was on C-13's so harder to justify spending $20k+ on an overhaul unless you plan on keeping the truck until the wheels fall off.

 

A engine that is running and standing still also has 1/2 off the gearbox running.
Take a PTO, only the last bit (the output shaft) is standing still when idling.All the rest us running.
While i agree it is unladen but still...

 

That truck barley idle, my truck have 250000 with 6000 hr idle and I don't Think I idle more than 10 days the whole time.

 

Would there be ANY saving of those engines and rigs at all? Besides sinking 20,000 more into them?

 

The trucks themselves were pretty nice as they were low mileage, but 20k+ hours on a C-13 is a time bomb, especially knowing all the idling they did. You might get lucky but I would hate to take the chance.