Why you should idle your engine while doint a Pre or post trip inspection

1. I'm smarter than the average truck driver or co-driver, and hopefully, your smart enough to have your co-driver out of the truck while doing a pre-trip, 2 sets of eyes, much better than 1 set of eyes.

2. If you check your coolant, oil, belts, etc., then start it and let it idle, you'd be amazed at what you might find that you wouldn't otherwise.

Had I not had it idling, 200 miles down the road, I would have been sitting on the side of the highway awaiting a heavy wrecker and a tractor swap, freezing my butt off. And instead of my truck being down for 2 days, it would have been down for 4 days. The belts were tight, when you grabbed the belts and/or the fan, nothing moved, it wasn't until it was actually idling that you could see the problem. When my boss/mechanic inspected it on Monday before doing repairs, he checked tension also and didn't find the problem, then the boss/dispatcher (the one part of working for a small Mom and Pop company, One brother is the boss/full-time dispatcher/part-time mechanic, the other brother is the boss/full-time mechanic/part-time dispatcher, and the sister is Secretary/Payroll/Safety/Hiring/Jill of All Office Trades/Part-time Dispatcher, the Dad is deceased, Mom is Full-time retired/Part-time office Assistant) told him to start it and idle it, that's where I said I found the problem, and that's when he found it also.

BTW, if your engine is making a weird noise while idling, which mine was, and you shut it off, it will no longer make the noise, then what? How do you find the problem? Or do you drive it till it breaks, does major damage, then say "Oh, there was the problem".

Let's see, 4 minutes of idle, with a cautious under hood looksy vs. $1,000 tow bill, 5 to 6 hrs of down time waiting tractor swap, and $200 in misc. parts (the hub/water pump were warranted by Mack as we just installed them in April) vs. $3,000 in parts (had the hub broken off, it would have taken out the belt, tensioner, hub, water pump, fan, radiator, fan clutch, wiring harness and coolant tank (go ahead ask me how I know that would have happened))