What's up with all the trucks idling?

Yes specially with the cost of diesel on the rise it makes good sense to try and reduce the needless waste of fuel, not to mention limiting the amount of air pollution in the atmosphere, this was something that I noticed when I first started driving in the USA was the amount of trucks left running sure if it is really cold, like below 32 degrees, or if it is really hot above 85 degrees, then yeah it makes sense, however lots of times the current outside temperature did not warrant keeping the truck motor running so why do so? An average truck diesel engine will burn approximately 8 gallons of fuel while left idling for 8 hours. Which is why either using an APU or just switching them off makes so much more sense.

 

Simple. When I had a sleeper on my truck I idle a lot. It was a company truck and I wanted to. Company was ok with it so I did. Don’t like it. #### off.

 

I am 100 percent seeing the same thing and thought the exact same thing. I did idle the end of summer since my APU was out of freon and it was not worth putting in the shop when I was making good money. I hardly ever let truck idle for any other reason unless too cold. Lots of money being thrown out the doors.

I think people did not plan on prices surging like it has and now they will start to think more on this. Money matters to all of us big and small so when it becomes a cost that is getting out of control they will pay extra close attention to it. Not sure if a shortage in APU's right now or not. If not right now I bet it will be before summer.

 

If fuel goes to $7 a gallon I’ll still idle. I don’t care what the cost is, I’m gonna stay comfortable.

 

I’ll idle when I need to otherwise I’ll use the generator. Down this way I don’t see near the percentage of people idling you do up north. Nothing near 3/4
I would say 1/4 idle down here unless it is real cold. Now come summer time that goes way up. I’ll be redneckin’ my window A/C Soon.

 

You’re making to many assumptions to try and prove a point. I only spend 3 or 4 nights a week in the truck, some weeks less. I don’t idle the truck every night. Spring and fall it gets idled very little.

 

I've also found that the idling noise. Drowns out the screams from inside the sleeper.

 

I would love to see where you get 1 gl per hr (10 gl per 10hr idle)
My volvo uses .5 gl per hr. (5gl per 10hr)
My prostar uses .65 gl per hr. (6.5gl per 10hr)
And apu's use 3-5gl per hr so in the real world apu's don't save that much