Updated Idle Laws by State

I had no idea. Got a education today.

I actually have a old style distillate water capped battery that is thirsty waiting replacement. What im afraid of is that it's sat long enough to either kill the plates or become some sort of mineral as it settled too long.

I should know better, learned from Pa as a kid how to water batteries when I was this little. Now they just use sealed batteries that need no watering whatsoever. The distillate is literally my first battery in life that requires a drink now and then. I don't particularly like that.

 

The real idle law is if I'm hot I'll idle the truck to stay comfortable. If I'm cold I'll idle the truck to stay comfortable. Does anyone actually follow a silly law like that?

 

90 degree day, 10 minute in car becomes 118. 30 plus minutes approach 150

Idle the #### thing make yourself happy. It is YOUR HOME away from home. What I really want is a idle kit, 10 inch pipe a old detriot that turns over almost stalling at 350 rpm, sort of like blatp blatp blatp all night long. A song of the people. A lullaby to me and a house of torture to the house next door.

Don't look at me. Sell the home and move. This is a free contury, don't like it? You are free to move.

 

I don't drive OTR so I don't have to worry about idle laws much, but in this day and time I don't understand why APUs aren't standard equipment on sleeper trucks.

I couldn't care less about global warming and all that hogwash but it just seems like a lot of wear and tear on equipment and fuel waste to idle all night. Of course I can understand keeping the truck running when it is super cold.

I also understand if you drive a company truck and that's what they do, because it's nothing to you, but I'd never want to idle my own truck all night for days on end.

 

A long time ago a boss man and I had that converstation when APU's started to be heavily advertised in various industry publications that were active at that time. I asked Boss why not stick it in the truck and burn 4 dollars a night in fuel instead of 15 or whatever running the big engine.

he looked at me and said 5000 dollars? You got that much for em? Also weight penalty etc.

I would not know what APU's cost way back then but today they make every sense if you can run hotel loads off them to keep people warm and cool in addition to preserving the fuel burn.

 

It's not just fuel consumption, it's hard on diesels to run at idle for long periods with little load.

We run day cabs so I don't have any firsthand experience but I can't help but imagine that a APU would pay for itself many times over the life of the truck.