Best APU To Buy That Does It All ?

my fuel mileage wemt up by 1mpg after I added the apu, I figure it paid for itself the first year

 

Yup. My APU paid for itself real quick. I also added the Espar and saved even more. I NEVER have to worry about my batteries being charged. My APU starts and stops when they need charging. Same thing with the AC. It only runs when needed instead of all night.

 

I don't stay out overnight in the truck as often as some others posting here, so only about 0.4-0.5 mpg benefit on fuel. In the south, so never need to run it to maintain batteries when parked either.

The huge thing on my truck is that the first owner had it installed when the truck was new. Right now at 811,833 miles on 16970.8 engine hours. Works out to 47.84 mph lifetime average, a sign of nearly zero idle time. That average speed is down about 0.3 mph as the first thing I did was disable the auto shutdown to conserve starter life. I still don't idle much, but I do let it run long enough to get situated and shut down once versus having to crank it four times between a gate and a door during the arrival/check in process.

It has an MXS C-15 Acert, and uses maybe two quarts of oil between 15,000 mi PMs. I've personally put on the last 200,000 miles. I haven't done the math on paper, but just off the top of my head what would be the value of a 1.5 mil inframe versus one at 1 mil, all other things wearing normal? For me that's like an extra 5-6 yrs in service before spending big bucks to either rebuild or move to another truck. That roughly doubles the expected service life of this truck, given it had just over 600k on it when I bought it 2 yrs ago.

 

Depends on a few things, some trucks burn more fuel idling than others. price of fuel is a big factor as well. As a rule of thumb I would say you save $40 diesel every 10 hr break you do not idle. And $125 every 34. So if you're in the truck alot I think you could save $200-$250/week in fuel. $10,000/yr. after you subtract fuel for apu. However, the real savings is hours and wear on your engine. I have a friend who spent $30,000 in repairs on an SCR/EGR engine last year. Extreme example, but one can only wonder how much of that was due to idling. Idling can just be a killer if you have an engine which produces a lot of soot. Even a pre-emissions or clean burning engine it is adding hours. A big diesel wants a load on it IMO. They really are not engineered for idling, seems counter-intuitive but more and more we're realizing it is about the worse thing for a big diesel.

 

My motor drinks almost 2 gallons an hour where I bump it to1,000 rpms for extended idling. But I don't live in the truck full time so what idling I do isn't near as bad as it could be if I was a road warrior living in the cab.

 

Idling a 500 HP engine for heat or cool is kinda no good anyway you look at it...first and foremost...its against the law! aside from that it takes life out of engine and transmission...and takes money out of your pocket. Rant over. I bit the bullet and picked up the new "Rigmaster" with the Kohler engine and love it....2/3 the cost of the tripac and as a certified diesel mechanic keeping it running is not a worry for me...also getting a ticket will also not be in my future...and make no mistake about it...tickets are in the future!!!

 

Oh, the TK tri pak is over $12,000 installed today....just saying

 

.first and foremost...its against the law!

When did it become against the law for me to idle? That's true in a very few places, but the vast majority of the US you can idle all you want.

 

Even then, those places don't even really enforce it.