Is idling bad?

[Oldfart]

Fords cop cars (eco-boost in the explorers) idle day in and day out longer than anything any of us could ever produce. And they seem to do just fine. Some of those cars are passed from shift to shift to shift without rest!

That's what I was going to say. Heavy duty alternator and radiator and let them idle forever. You just need to do maintenance by hours at that point, not miles. I was just at a meeting earlier this week where we were trying to explain to non-mechanically inclined supervisors why a cop car with 140,000 miles IS A LOT, due to all the run time at idling.

 

[dsg2003mach1]

The electric fans on Raptors are upgraded over standard F-150 as well, they are dual 700W brushless motors.

exactly, the lightning guys are upgrading to these and loving them (there's a guy selling wiring upgrade kits to handle it). I looked into them for my mustang as well but no way on earth they're gonna fit.

 

[Brian Hudock]

I have read research indicating as much as 80% of engine wear occurs at cold start up due to lack of lubrication.
Many of the people I race with pressurize the oiling system before starting.
Idling with the trans in park is the best choice in my opinion as compared to frequent start ups.

 

[hwycycle]

The electric fans on Raptors are upgraded over standard F-150 as well, they are dual 700W brushless motors.

Can the raptor fans be easily retrofitted to a standard F150?

 

[KODIAK]

So no one else is seeing excessive smoke when idling over and over over a period of time?
I have seen this posted multiple times.

Happened to me, so I don't do it anymore.

 

[Spectragod]

Fords cop cars (eco-boost in the explorers) idle day in and day out longer than anything any of us could ever produce. And they seem to do just fine. Some of those cars are passed from shift to shift to shift without rest!

As someone who has to make sure a fleet gets maintained, I can assure you excessive idle time is rough on them, Ford says every idle hour is equivalent to 30 miles, we have 65k mile cars in our fleet with 18-20k of idle time, I can assure you that they are smoking piles of $h!t.

A neighboring department had a fleet of ecoboost car that would eat turbos every 10-12 months, one again, hot seating the cars and excessive idle time. If leaving them idling was good, dealers would just leave them run on the lot?

Ford did void a warranty on one of our F550’s, the truck had 9k miles on it, but had 1k idle time on it, motor gave up, and even though Ford fleet said that they would never use idle hours to void a warranty....... they did. Your mileage may vary....

 

[KOBRA2848]

My brother is the diesel tech at a Ford dealer and one of the fracking companies brought it a F350 that had under 5000 miles on the odometer but according to the idle meter he doesn’t think they ever shut it off. I think it was in for turbo issues but no warranty per Ford.

Mark

 

[FordTechOne]

As someone who has to make sure a fleet gets maintained, I can assure you excessive idle time is rough on them, Ford says every idle hour is equivalent to 30 miles, we have 65k mile cars in our fleet with 18-20k of idle time, I can assure you that they are smoking piles of $h!t.

A neighboring department had a fleet of ecoboost car that would eat turbos every 10-12 months, one again, hot seating the cars and excessive idle time. If leaving them idling was good, dealers would just leave them run on the lot?

Ford did void a warranty on one of our F550’s, the truck had 9k miles on it, but had 1k idle time on it, motor gave up, and even though Ford fleet said that they would never use idle hours to void a warranty....... they did. Your mileage may vary....

All too often fleets do not account for idle time. I've seen some failures that seem crazy for the odometer mileage, but then you see the engine hours - especially diesels. There is a reason every 2020+ Police Interceptor (Explorer) comes standard as a Hybrid. Huge improvement in efficiency and wear reduction.

 

[FordTechOne]

My brother is the diesel tech at a Ford dealer and one of the fracking companies brought it a F350 that had under 5000 miles on the odometer but according to the idle meter he doesn’t think they ever shut it off. I think it was in for turbo issues but no warranty per Ford.

Mark

Was it in Alaska by chance? They literally never shut the trucks off. They run 24/7.

 

[Johnkn]

OP you’re aware you can check your idle hours, right? At least I can on my 2019 802a..