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Conversation with a fleet manager about idle time made me check my own habits
Was doing a PM on a 2018 Freightliner last week and the fleet manager, Dave, started talking about how he cuts idle time by 15 minutes per truck per day. At first I thought he was just pinching pennies on fuel. But he showed me the data on regen cycles and DPF cleaning intervals. Idle time messes with soot load more than I ever figured. Now I pay attention to how long I let trucks sit and run before I shut them down or hook up a block heater. Has anyone else seen actual maintenance costs drop after clients cracked down on idle hours?
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amy8581mo ago
Did Dave mention that regen cycles get worse when trucks sit and idle during cold weather, not just from the idle time itself? That was the thing I found out the hard way with my own rig. I used to let it warm up for 20 minutes on freezing mornings, thinking I was being easy on the engine. But the soot load graph showed it spiked way faster than on a run, and the DPF cleaned itself a lot more often. Block heater plus a 5 minute idle, then rolling out easy, that cut my regen count almost in half over a winter. Is that the kind of data pattern you are seeing from Dave's numbers?
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