First winter, do I idle in -13 degree weather?

to me that seems potentially unsafe if true. Not that you should be stopped anywhere dangerous for long enough for it to do that but still…

 

Socks with sandals is bad ….

just saying

 

Anything lower than say 15 degrees I would not shut it off. Opinions will vary on that however. Maybe 10…whatever. Point is there is there comes a mythical point in space where shutting it off becomes a risky idea just to save 20 bucks worth of fuel to idle for 10 hours. Above that fine, shut it off and use the bunk heater if you have one or bury yourself under a pile of blankets if you don’t. (Or plug in a space heater if shore power is available.)

Hot weather I rarely idle but then again I don’t try to sleep when the sun is out anyway. Some screens for the windows to keep the bugs out is the ticket.

yeah this is a major fact of life out on the road. Most people are indoor cats who run and hide into heated and cooled buildings when Mother Nature gets annoying. You live in a metal box with single pane windows so half the time it will either be too hot or too cold. Some trucks do have fancy aux HVAC systems for parked heating and cooling…they should start making that more of a thing standard.

 

At -13 it still shuts down?

What company do you work for?

 

I always idled at 20 or below. Unless I fueled up in the north. The heater would quit if it actually worked.

My company at that time supplied us with Howes.

The fuel lines for them heaters must be pretty small.

Shutting truck down for 2 hours and running for 10 minutes won't heat the motor up. 2 hours is a long time to make the coolant cold. 10 minutes isn't enough time to heat up 2 hours of colding.

 

You see some of the toenails exposed now, you will change your mind. And may have trouble forgetting the image...

 

I am up in Wisconsin and had to hook up to a trailer this morning. Upon trying to leave I noticed that one of the sets of wheels was not spinning and upon reporting that to my shop they immediately blamed me for some reason and told my manager that I was trying to drag the tires and may have ruined them (even though I was driving over hard packed snow and ice). My truck has been in the shop for the past 2 weeks getting "fixed" by the same person who's accusing me of all this stuff and the day it got out of the shop it would not hold air in the primary tank and even completely dropped all air out at one point. Of course I'm to blame, he might as well pin the Chicago fire on me too while he's at it.

 

Wisconsin, yup, me too this morning.
Hooked to the trailer and tried to pull out and my drives just spun. I thought the trailer brakes were frozen. About 2 feet of snow on both sides of the trailer so I really didn't want to try and crawl under there.
After a while I unhooked and got a yard jockey to pull it out for me. The tires were rolling.
But after I re-hooked and started rolling I noticed one wheel was not rolling, it was dragging.
Some hammer work got the lower brake shoe free, but not the top one. I had to find an area of the lot that was just wet with no snow to rock back and forth on to free it up.

 

After you hook up to a trailer try and back up a to break the brakes loose if you have room. Or if you do get moving going forward just kick it in neutral if you’re going slow to see if it keeps coasting or if you have a brake hung up.

 

Well, I hate to be the one, but a drivers responsibility is making sure all your wheels are turning. Don't get offensive now, it's happened to all of us. I think you caught it early enough and didn't damage the tires, but a simple whack on the brake shoes could have eliminated this whole mess. In the shop for 2 weeks? For what? I think they may be trying to get rid of you.