Why Do They Idle All Day?

Once a year we take our department heads over to Canton, TX. for a day of shopping and fun at the trade days. I rent them all a scooter give um some cash and and off they go. I always park the bus right next to the West Entrance in an area where three or four busses can back into. I was the first one there yesterday morning and after I got parked, I settled in for a little nap. After about thirty minuets another bus backs in next to me. It's an H3 from some tour company out of Houston. I'm laying there thinking he's going to shut his engine down any second now, right. Wrong. Finally I realize that the driver is going to leave the engine running so I get up and go over to ask him why. I knock on the door and he waves at me to come in. We visit a bit and I ask him why he didn't shut the engine off. His answer wasn't too techinical, "company policy." This guy has been driving for the same tour company for twelve years and the company policy is to leave their engines running all the time, except on overnight trips. He had no idea why they didn't shut the engines down, he was just doing as told. Why would these tour companies leave their engines running like that? He also had a gen set running, company policy. If someone has an explanation for this "company policy" I sure would like to hear it. I wish I had made note of the company name and I would call them Monday and ask myself, but I didn't even look at the name.

A lot of guessing going on, but my ideas. The bus has a very bad case of the leans and with the engine running no one will know, the batteries are trash but no need to worry about it starting, the driver is hot, run the motor for AC, the driver is cold, run the motor for heat, the list goes on and on and on........

Ted, I would think there would be two main reasons. As Jon has mentioned before, there is less chance for component failure when fueling or other short stops if you leave the bus running than if you shut it off. It is not good for any engine to just run for short distances and be turned off and on. This causes moisture build up within the engine, and "starting" is more stress than "running".

Secondly, I would think the tour industry wants to keep their customers happy, and a hot/cold bus makes for unhappy customers. The only way to keep the bus comfortable on hot/cold days is to never let it get hot/cold in the first place. If you shut it off for even a short period of time, the temperature quickly changes, and there will be a period of time that all riders will be uncomfortable. Our church chartered a 45' MCI a few months ago, and the driver never shut it off except when we were in the motel at night.

It would seem to me that excessive idling would not be good for the engine. I have noticed that my ProDriver measures the length of time that the engine runs at idle. So there must be a negative associated with excessive idling.

Paul's comment about keeping the coach cool/warm makes sense if the bus is not equipped with a generator. But if it has a generator to run roof airs, I don't understand why run the main engine.

Additionally, it seems like a waste of diesel to let it run on high idle for 8 hours! This would have been a good question to ask at United Engines in OKC.

Once an engine has been heat soaked, in other words everything is as warm as it is going to get there is no advantage in leaving it idle unless as Kevin points out the thing has the leans, the batteries are junk, or the driver just wants to stay comfortable.

Short hops that are over before everything warms up are bad for a coach because the engine has a lot of moisture not yet evaporated and it condenses which is not good for the engine. I don't know if anybody has noticed, but ever since the fuel prices went crazy a while back companies that never shut their engines down are doing it all the time now. The UPS driver is barely stopped in our driveway when he shuts it off, and he starts it back up 30 seconds later after putting the delivery in our garage.

I'll shut down for a 30 minute lunch break, but not a 5 minute bathroom break.

Liberty stressed turning off the engine at diesel fill ups. I guess to prevent fuel from belching down the side of the coach at shut off ( at the same time the truck driver next to you flicks his cigarette your way).

I do not shut down, but DO shut off your OTR.


JIM