2012 Ram diesel with over 1million miles

pnichols wrote:

colliehauler wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
Long continuous runs are the best for getting lots of miles out of an engine.

For your typical user, a million miles would be 40-60yrs, so not particularly relevant.

Most engine wear is the start/stops and moisture build up from short trips. On another forum a V-10 in a airport shuttle that run almost continuously was reported to have gone 900k miles.

.... And I'll bet that shuttle V10 spent a lot of hours idling, too.

So ... why do I read so much in the forums that "it's not good for an engine to be idled"?

(Recently I've started partially charging my RV batteries every other day or so when drycamping by merely idling the V10 for about an hour. The alternator dumps a lot of current into the batteries during that short time and the V10 can hardly be heard or felt at idle.)

Most airport shuttle vans don't start, just sit idling for an hour then shut down. Do it occasionally while camping, I wouldn't expect a noticeable impact on engine longevity. Do it all the time with only rare days actually putting the engine under load and it may be different.

Shuttle vans sit idling for a few minutes (10-15 tops) and then are driving with higher power output. That higher power output helps get the engine fully up to temperature and it never fully cools while idling. Plus there is always oil pumping thru the system.

It's a bigger deal in diesels. They are incredibly efficient at idle burning almost no fuel. No fuel, no heat, so the engines never really warm up if you just idle. Once you get them on the road even lightly loaded with gentle acceleration, you are dumping a lot more heat into the engine block and it quickly comes up to temperature.

This is why the modern recommendation for winter starts is to give the engine 15-30 seconds to get oil moving thru the system but then start driving with moderate acceleration until the engine warms up.