Engine hours help

[duckman631]

Trying to find info on this whole engine hours and idle hours thing. Not sure what it means. If it’s good or bad etc. I bought this truck used at 51,000 miles. Currently have 80000 on it. Is this good or bad and as far as idle, aside from the usual waiting for the woman to come out of a store and I’m sitting in truck with ac or heat on, I also use remote start in winters so truck is running while warming up.

idle 410
Driving 2370
Total 2780
Mileage 80,728

What does this mean and what should be my concerns be


Thanks!

 

[Bigskyroadglide]

410 / 2780 = 14.7% or about 15% idle time of total engine hours.

Lots of idling, potential lower oiling due to lower oil pressure.

I've seen 5% to 30%. Service vehicles think police cruisers are on higher side.

More idle might also mean more stop and go.

I think it's a statistical number, not certain what it indicates.

My number was 15% until I started driving 90 miles one way for work. It's under 7% now so you can change it by driving long distances every day.

I also think you could use it to validate if someone says all highway miles.

Long range drivers might use hours for maintenance vs miles.

My .02

 

[Different Drummer]

If you are looking for some type of comparison I can offer this. I bought my truck new and have it almost exclusively for traveling long distances. By that I mean, across the county north to south X4, east to west X1 and several round trips to Newfoundland. It is my daily driver so when in between highway trips it does see normal everyday use. It is one year newer than yours and has almost exactly half the mileage. ( 41,000 ) The last year has seen no highway mileage due to the virus keeping me home. My idle time just turned 60 hours about a week ago. I believe my run time was about 1010. I know that is an extreme to one end of the spectrum but can give you an idea of what a truck with a majority of highway miles has on the hour meter.

 

[danoday]

You could apply engine op hours to oil life interval. You would have to make some assumptions until you can confirm. If average is 60 mph= 1 hour meter; 50 meter hours = 3000 miles.
I would average hour/miles so you have two metrics to change oil. There may not be need though, as milage is the more critical of engine duty and operation time already figured in the service interval. The second critical is months.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[Sandevino]

Statistical numbers... driving vs idling.

 

[Burla]

Trying to find info on this whole engine hours and idle hours thing. Not sure what it means. If it’s good or bad etc. I bought this truck used at 51,000 miles. Currently have 80000 on it. Is this good or bad and as far as idle, aside from the usual waiting for the woman to come out of a store and I’m sitting in truck with ac or heat on, I also use remote start in winters so truck is running while warming up.

idle 410
Driving 2370
Total 2780
Mileage 80,728

What does this mean and what should be my concerns be


Thanks!

Since you have 30k on it I'd say you are good. I would just try and minimize it as much as possible, if you are waiting on a woman with ac on, just rev it a couple times 3k plus rpm's. Plus on cold starts the idle should be kicked up so less of an issue, I would time it when the idle kicks down, what you really want to avoid is warm idle with rpm's down in the 5-800 range. You can literally set a timer every day like an egg timer and set it when your idle kicks down. Warm idle might be the single worse thing you can do for a hemi, the correlation between cam issues and warm idle certainly is a concern.

 

[Travis8352]

I have 160 idle hours with 50k miles and 1400 drive hours. I try to never idle it

 

[Pull Ya]

Since you have 30k on it I'd say you are good. I would just try and minimize it as much as possible, if you are waiting on a woman with ac on, just rev it a couple times 3k plus rpm's. Plus on cold starts the idle should be kicked up so less of an issue, I would time it when the idle kicks down, what you really want to avoid is warm idle with rpm's down in the 5-800 range. You can literally set a timer every day like an egg timer and set it when your idle kicks down. Warm idle might be the single worse thing you can do for a hemi, the correlation between cam issues and warm idle certainly is a concern.

You could also tell her to hurry up a little-----good luck with that solution though
Jay

 

[Burla]

You could also tell her to hurry up a little-----good luck with that solution though
Jay

LMAO, good luck with that one.

 

[EdGs]

2015 Ram 1500 SLT QC 5.7L 2WD

109,820 miles

265 idle 3278 drive = 8.08%

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

[EDIT: I re-posted this in a separate thread that seemed better-suited, but couldn't figure out how to delete it here, so here it stays. ]

I bought my 2017 used in December 2018 with just under 18,000 miles on it, and I only started to pay attention to idle/drive engine hours ratio within the last couple of months. Turns out that at 51,418 miles total, I have 303 idle hours to 357 drive hours.

I don't remember what it was at when I bought it, and I don't feel like I let it idle that long. Sometimes on road trips with the family, I leave them in the car with the AC on while I go pump gas or get food inside, and occasionally I also do this when I have the kids with me when I gas up during the summer. But other than that, I don't consider that I idle it much. And a lot of my commute during regular week days was 90 miles/day highway, so I really don't get how the idle hours number got so high.

Anyone else with such high idle hours? Any reasoning on why it's so high, or why my perception says this ratio should be much lower? Also, I'm now going to reduce my oil change interval to 4,000 based on the owner manual recommendation (for severe duty). Bah. This truck, a roller coaster of emotions it is.

 

[Burla]

I would also use an oil or additive that would help aid low rpm lubrication, the forum uses redline oil or alternatively "poor mans redline" lubegard biotech for this. Truck was likely used in the trades or gov't, they often let trucks idle. Higher idle hours is an issue with many hemi's, and has surely causes some cams to be wiped early. Those two products have additives found in every day oil, just more of them. Plus base oils that will also help keep that metal protected.

You can also tune the idle up a bit, that will help, but there is only so much you can do if you are gonna keep doing it. I would say I would rather have redline on a 10k mile interval then have a shelf oil on a short interval in your situation, so this strategy pays for itself and the interval is 2.5 times longer. However, if you opted for this lubrication strategy you will need to pair that redline with a spun microglass filter, those filters out last ANY oil. Amsoil EA, Royal Purple 20-820, Wix XP, and Fram Ultra all have spun microglass. Learn about oil filters here.

It's too late to worry abut it now, just do what you can and enjoy the truck. Worst case at some time you need a cam, aint the end of the world.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

I would also use an oil or additive that would help aid low rpm lubrication, the forum uses redline oil or alternatively "poor mans redline" lubegard biotech for this. Truck was likely used in the trades or gov't, they often let trucks idle. Higher idle hours is an issue with many hemi's, and has surely causes some cams to be wiped early. Those two products have additives found in every day oil, just more of them. Plus base oils that will also help keep that metal protected.

You can also tune the idle up a bit, that will help, but there is only so much you can do if you are gonna keep doing it. I would say I would rather have redline on a 10k mile interval then have a shelf oil on a short interval in your situation, so this strategy pays for itself and the interval is 2.5 times longer. However, if you opted for this lubrication strategy you will need to pair that redline with a spun microglass filter, those filters out last ANY oil. Amsoil EA, Royal Purple 20-820, Wix XP, and Fram Ultra all have spun microglass. Learn about oil filters here.

It's too late to worry abut it now, just do what you can and enjoy the truck. Worst case at some time you need a cam, aint the end of the world.

@Burla ,

Thanks for the input. After doing a little reading up on some of your (and other) forum member posts, I'm fairly convinced I also want to go the Red Line route. Thank you for all the other information you've also shared throughout the forum. But, since I didn't read every post from you over the last couple of years, I hope you'll indulge me here on the one question I have remaining.

I notice you originally switched to RL 5W20 when you were first trying to alleviate your tick, as our vehicle spec call for 5W20, and I will probably do so as well at first. But what caused you to eventually switch to RL 5W30, and what made you decide to stay with it? I want to see if I notice the same things that led you to eventually go with the 30 weight as well, but I'm not ready to yet without knowing why. Once I have some experience under the RL, I'll go add my observations to your green-red-blue tag post.

Thank again!

P.S. I'm now recording my idle/drive hours at every fuel-up in my fuelly app (might as well since I'm recording every gas fill-up record anyway). I hope over a long enough number of records to see how those hours trackers are behaving, and whether they are accurate. I just wish I had been doing this since I bought the truck. I'm much more conscious about idling now. Even my wife has spontaneously chimed in when she found an opportunity to reduce my truck's idling during the recent Texas icepocalypse balckout adventure (she actually listened to that particular morning automotive rant!).

 

[Burla]

@Burla ,

Thanks for the input. After doing a little reading up on some of your (and other) forum member posts, I'm fairly convinced I also want to go the Red Line route. Thank you for all the other information you've also shared throughout the forum. But, since I didn't read every post from you over the last couple of years, I hope you'll indulge me here on the one question I have remaining.

I notice you originally switched to RL 5W20 when you were first trying to alleviate your tick, as our vehicle spec call for 5W20, and I will probably do so as well at first. But what caused you to eventually switch to RL 5W30, and what made you decide to stay with it? I want to see if I notice the same things that led you to eventually go with the 30 weight as well, but I'm not ready to yet without knowing why. Once I have some experience under the RL, I'll go add my observations to your green-red-blue tag post.

Thank again!

P.S. I'm now recording my idle/drive hours at every fuel-up in my fuelly app (might as well since I'm recording every gas fill-up record anyway). I hope over a long enough number of records to see how those hours trackers are behaving, and whether they are accurate. I just wish I had been doing this since I bought the truck. I'm much more conscious about idling now. Even my wife has spontaneously chimed in when she found an opportunity to reduce my truck's idling during the recent Texas icepocalypse balckout adventure (she actually listened to that particular morning automotive rant!).

Let me start by saying it is a grey area, as far as what hemi tick someone has, we lump all hemi tick together, but that is not the case. So I am fairly convinced the worse the hemi tick the more additives help the condition, the less the hemi tick viscosity is the answer, additives also help but they work together. Additives plate, viscosity cushions. I had bad hemi tick, so not only did my hemi tick dissolve sooner then some lesser ticks, but 5w20 worked. A sign it was likely additives doing what they do, see the white paper.

Now, some guys with lesser tick 5w20 did not work, hemi395 really led the way with this, all backed up with uoa's and since then others have followed as well. My tick went away 500 miles on 5w20, his took 1700 miles and then some, sounds hokey I know, but it is what it is backed up with video/audio uoa's the hole 9. Mind you, this is a small sample size, but the results echoed for a decade now with many trucks. My tick was horrible sewing machine, hemi395's was more annoying but not the banging force. When you have that banging sound, oil film does not survive that, that is the entire point of everything we did. Mind you I had that banging on redline 5w20 for 500 miles, but then went silent, why would that be? If it was viscosity, it would have stopped banging right away?

Anyhow, why I went to 5w30 if because at that point I was aware of how bad the wear numbers were with hemi's and I was hoping to do what little I can to curve this, hemi tick was not so much a concern as it was gone and stayed gone with 5w30 as well. Now, the difference between 5w30 and 5w20 in a hemi can only be seen on the evic setting oil psi, the oil pump equals out oil flow (viscosity) to a degree, so we are not talking about a bunch more protection as you see on the stat sheets, but rather just a bit more. I stayed with it because my engine is butter smooth and I "feel" I am doing what I can to curve hemi wear.

Factory warranty never wasn't any concern to me, if I had to I would have changed the oil to 5w20 before bringing it to them I could care less. They said hemi tick was normal, fca is full of BMP's. If factory warranty is a concern 5w20 redline would not fair any better, as it is not api cert'd. Neither is lubegard biotech, so if you want to stay within the owners manual and get rid of hemi tick, all I have to say is good luck with that, for real not being quib. I mean good luck with that for real. What we have done happened over 10 years, I know there may be other answers out there, but because of the good success rate it seams like everyone gets on the redline/lubegard boat soon as they get tick. Some people are lucky to get their dealer to fix hemi tick, I suggest that route FIRST before developing your lubrication strategy for your equipment. Clearly the dealers lubrication strategy they have planned for you doesn't work in many machines.

 

[Wild one]

@Burla ,

Thanks for the input. After doing a little reading up on some of your (and other) forum member posts, I'm fairly convinced I also want to go the Red Line route. Thank you for all the other information you've also shared throughout the forum. But, since I didn't read every post from you over the last couple of years, I hope you'll indulge me here on the one question I have remaining.

I notice you originally switched to RL 5W20 when you were first trying to alleviate your tick, as our vehicle spec call for 5W20, and I will probably do so as well at first. But what caused you to eventually switch to RL 5W30, and what made you decide to stay with it? I want to see if I notice the same things that led you to eventually go with the 30 weight as well, but I'm not ready to yet without knowing why. Once I have some experience under the RL, I'll go add my observations to your green-red-blue tag post.

Thank again!

P.S. I'm now recording my idle/drive hours at every fuel-up in my fuelly app (might as well since I'm recording every gas fill-up record anyway). I hope over a long enough number of records to see how those hours trackers are behaving, and whether they are accurate. I just wish I had been doing this since I bought the truck. I'm much more conscious about idling now. Even my wife has spontaneously chimed in when she found an opportunity to reduce my truck's idling during the recent Texas icepocalypse balckout adventure (she actually listened to that particular morning automotive rant!).

I've already posted this today,but read the note at the bottom Daniel.Also you'll notice nowhere does FCA say 5W-20 is best for engine longevity,all they say is it's better for cold weather starting and milege,you can be damn sure if FCA thought 5W-20 was best for engine longevity they'd be touting it to the moon and back,but there is a noticable lack of that claim,lol.This is from the 700 page printed manual for my 14,the engines haven't changed any from 09 to 21 as far as bearing clearances go,which is basically what dictates oil visicosity

 

[caulk04]

I'm planning to move to 5w-30 as I run out of 5w-20 on hand...not that it matters to anyone else.

Also FWIW, my truck has 37k on it and displays 500 idle hours. The lease owner before me clearly idled, a lot. I've never had a vehicle with an hour meter before and I'm not going to waste any time worrying about it. The trip B meter hasn't been reset since the truck had a couple hundred miles on it, average speed was 19mph when I bought it. My driving usually records the average speed 38-40.

 

[BadHemi2014]

[EDIT: I re-posted this in a separate thread that seemed better-suited, but couldn't figure out how to delete it here, so here it stays. ]

I bought my 2017 used in December 2018 with just under 18,000 miles on it, and I only started to pay attention to idle/drive engine hours ratio within the last couple of months. Turns out that at 51,418 miles total, I have 303 idle hours to 357 drive hours.

I don't remember what it was at when I bought it, and I don't feel like I let it idle that long. Sometimes on road trips with the family, I leave them in the car with the AC on while I go pump gas or get food inside, and occasionally I also do this when I have the kids with me when I gas up during the summer. But other than that, I don't consider that I idle it much. And a lot of my commute during regular week days was 90 miles/day highway, so I really don't get how the idle hours number got so high.

Anyone else with such high idle hours? Any reasoning on why it's so high, or why my perception says this ratio should be much lower? Also, I'm now going to reduce my oil change interval to 4,000 based on the owner manual recommendation (for severe duty). Bah. This truck, a roller coaster of emotions it is.View attachment 237431

I have seen several posts where engine drive hours have spontaneously reset to zero but idle hours don't change.

Here's mine from back in June, an ex fleet truck, used by a gas company in Ohio, I can only assume it idled all day.

It does have the hemi tick but has multiple broken exhaust manifold bolts. Just threw a P219A code yesterday, hope it's due to the exhaust leak and not a failed lifter.

Anyway, to the OP and everyone else, if it doesn't look like this, DON'T WORRY! Use a good oil and filter, change it when needed, perform all other fluid changes and maintenance on time and that hemi should run like a scalded cat for a long time.

Now if it does look like mine, then yeah worry
(Just an excuse for new cam )

 

[xtremeroller]

SO what does the computer in the truck consider idle time? Is there a certain RPM range it has to be under? I live on a red clay dirt road and for that mile of dirt road driving I usually put it in 2nd gear and drive 15mph over it. Is that considered " idle time " by the trucks ECM?

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

I have seen several posts where engine drive hours have spontaneously reset to zero but idle hours don't change.

Here's mine from back in June, an ex fleet truck, used by a gas company in Ohio, I can only assume it idled all day.

It does have the hemi tick but has multiple broken exhaust manifold bolts. Just threw a P219A code yesterday, hope it's due to the exhaust leak and not a failed lifter.

Anyway, to the OP and everyone else, if it doesn't look like this, DON'T WORRY! Use a good oil and filter, change it when needed, perform all other fluid changes and maintenance on time and that hemi should run like a scalded cat for a long time.

Now if it does look like mine, then yeah worry
(Just an excuse for new cam )

@BadHemi2014, those are not rookie numbers! Wow! Also, I am not 100% convinced these numbers are always accurate or reflect the reality of the situation. My felt experience simply says this cannot be so. That's why I'm kicking myself for not paying more attention to my idle/drive numbers from the get go. But, as I said above, I plan to start recording these values in my Fuelly app so that I can see how they change over time, and hopefully that will provide some clues as to their reliability. So far I only have one data point (darn you COVID-19!). I probably won't be able to draw any conclusions until I have at least 10 or more.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

So I've been collecting data since my last post, recording the odometer reading, idle hours reading, and drive hours reading about once every two weeks or so. Here is what I've concluded:

(1) The Blue dots are the idle hours. The current value is 325 hours at 56,022 miles.

(2) The Orange dots are the drive hours. The current value is 515 hours at 56,022 miles.

(3) Notice since I began recording the blue and orange dots, they have maintained a highly linear rate of accumulation. Adding trendlines to both sets of data (orange drive hours and blue idle hours), I get the slope of each, which you can see on the associated linear equation.

(4) Assumption: when the vehicle was "born," both the idle and drive hours were zero (0).

(5) Assumption: Since the vehicle was "born," both idle and drive hours have been accumulating at this same rate (slope). I know this is a pretty big assumption, but I have no way of knowing what the driving habits of the only prior owner was, and I have been driving the truck since I bought it at 1.5 years old and around 17,600 miles, 70% of the vehicles life. So I'm going to make this assumption because it probably isn't that far off.

(6) I've graphed back-projected lines (yellow for idle hours, gray for drive hours), setting their slopes the same as the recorded data trend lines, but setting their y-intercepts to zero, simulating a brand "new-born" truck.

(7) You can see that the back-projected idle hours line (yellow dots) comes in about 60 hours less than my current value. However, idle hours also have the ability to increase on their own without a corresponding increase in the odometer reading, since you can be idling while sitting still. So, I actually believe my current idle hours value is correct: 325 hours.

(8) Drive hours do not have the ability to increase without a corresponding increase in odometer reading, so that means that the back-projected drive hours line (gray dots) is the more likely true value. As you can see, it goes off the chart. If you take it's reading at my current mileage of 56,022 miles, it is 1,910. Way more than 515.

In conclusion, at some point the drive hours reset back to zero around 41,000 miles, causing it to have to start over again. I have no idea why this would happen. But, I think my logic above makes sense, so I'm going to go with it. That means my current ratio of idle/total hours is 325/(325+1910) = 15%. Much better!