Too Much Idling Burns Your Money
Wayne Cochrane
I help Heavy-Duty Parts salespeople and diesel truck owners accomplish reduced emissions related downtime using quality emission system replacement parts and recommending proactive service intervals.
Idling vehicles are wasting your money. The bottom line is that excessive idling is impacting your bottom line. Over the last decade, there has been increased and widespread awareness of the waste of fuel, engine wear and tear, and overall costs associated with vehicle idling. Nationally, trucks burn four billion gallons of fuel each year when idling. That is an incredible amount of fuel and money. Today, diesel fuel hovers around $2.25 a gallon; over the last five years, the average cost of a gallon of diesel has been $3.54 per gallon.1 High fuel prices are not going away. So, four billion gallons multiplied by the average of $3.54/gallon is $14, 160,000,000 per year. That’s 14 billion dollars spent on idling. Yet when you break it down to the per truck per day level, it is all too easy to overlook idling, to consider leaving the engine running during the loading process or during service or delivery events to just be part of the cost of doing business. The truck has to stay warm, right? The driver needs to run the engine to use the PTO, right? The driver likes to listen to the radio and keep the AC running while he eats his lunch in the cab, but that’s okay, right? It’s only a few minutes per day, no more than an hour. It should be okay. But it’s not okay if your goal is to make money. Here’s an exercise for you: Stop what you are doing. Get up and go down to your loading docks or yard. Are any trucks idling right now? If so, you are burning money. Go out into the field, meet up with one of your trucks. How long does it idle during a delivery or service? Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Now imagine the quantity of diesel fuel it takes to idle a truck engine for that second, that minute, that hour. Replace in your musing the diesel fuel for dollar bills, each dollar burning slowly, but permanently, out of your P&L, pushing your margins the wrong way. If your vehicles are idling, you are burning money. So why hasn’t your company embraced the facts of idling — and what will you do about it?
Idle Free Systems can help, call me!
Do you have any idea how unbearable sitting in 98% humidity on a 90 degree day and NOT idke your truck for the AC? It will contribute to driver fatigue quicker than not getting proper sleep.
Truck Sales Rep at Rihm Kenworth
8 年Is there anything being looked into to provide better battery life so the drivers don't have to ide to keep their batteries charged when operating the increased Hotel Load?
Advisor @ Versatran | Heavy Duty Truck Beds for Equipment Transportation
8 年Getting past the old school thinking on diesel idling may be the biggest challenge. When diesels were hard starting, air systems leaked like crazy and fuel was cheap idling was easy to justify. Modern diesels start unaided in some pretty extreme conditions. With modern air lines and fittings, along with a little maintenance air systems can be kept tight and LED lighting has drastically reduced battery draw. Nowadays the cost of wasted fuel is just the beginning. Add the cost of increased emission systems maintenance and reduced engine life. Having to clean a DPF early increases costs as well as downtime. At $20K plus to overhaul a diesel truck engine you don't want to be doing that any sooner than absolutely necessary. The list goes on.