Should I be concerned with these idle hours?

[seabrook]

Well ,I did have a new 1980 st 6 , 4 speed with a radio, good truck, wife could not stir the sloppy stick, The '57 was O.K., than made the mistake of buying a 351 W, what a pile of crap, body O.K. if you did not drive it, the 6 cylinder had more power.
Idle would be a big problem in a city stop and go, cruising the highway , no issue at all

i had 1 Ford truck it was a total POS!!!

 

[BadHemi2014]

Hahaha, here's my 2014 back in June with 118K miles, she's got 122K now. This was an ex fleet truck.


Warm idle oil pressure is 47 psi.
I run Redline 5W30 with Royal Purple 20-820 filter. Bad 'hemi tick' from multiple broken manifold bolts but runs like a scalded cat.
Use a good oil, good oil filter, keep up on maintenance and don't stress.
I repeat, use a good oil filter. Idle pressure was much lower with other filters on my truck. If your oil pressure is on the 30s at idle, try a different filter. Cheap insurance.
Just my experience, these hemis are particular and each one is different!

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

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 after learning it could be related to the lifter failure. 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. I live in Houston and work 8-5 in an office, 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.

I see there are a few others with high idle hours, and it appears sometimes the numbers don't quite makes sense. Any reasoning on why mine are so high, or why my perception says this ratio should be much lower? I'm gonna have to look into how it comes up with those numbers. Also, I'm now going to reduce my oil change interval to 4,000 miles based on the owner manual recommendation (for severe duty). Bah. This truck, a roller coaster of emotions it is.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

I posted this in a related thread, but thought I'd post it here as well in case it helps anyone who might stumble across this thread in the future.

********************************************************************************************************************

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!

 

[VanillaGorilla2015]

Never checked mine before 260 idle and 1580 engine. So under 15%

 

[Gort]

In the interest of accuracy warp 7 is faster than you stated. It's more of an exponential curve. As per google : In "Star Trek," a warp factor of 1 is light speed, and a warp factor of 9.9 is more than 2,000 times greater than light speed.

Just sayin'

It probably has a lot to do with what muffler you have.....

Not trying to split hairs, but warp scales varied depending on era. The warp scale to which you're referring is a Next Generation creation. In the original series, the multiple of light speed was a cube of the warp factor, i.e. Warp 1 = speed of light(c), Warp 2 = 8c, Warp 3 = 27c ... Warp 7 = 343c, etc. There are several TOS episodes where the Enterprise hits Warp 14 or 15 (frequently due to alien intervention). TOS Warp 9.9 would be 970.299c.

 

[indept]

Not trying to split hairs, but warp scales varied depending on era. The warp scale to which you're referring is a Next Generation creation. In the original series, the multiple of light speed was a cube of the warp factor, i.e. Warp 1 = speed of light(c), Warp 2 = 8c, Warp 3 = 27c ... Warp 7 = 343c, etc. There are several TOS episodes where the Enterprise hits Warp 14 or 15 (frequently due to alien intervention). TOS Warp 9.9 would be 970.299c.

 

[Gort]

View attachment 467365

 

[GTyankee]

I had a 2009 Dodge Ram HEMI
bought it new,
When you wait out in the middle of nowhere out in the desert in the summer, 115 F degrees
You are not going to sit there, waiting for someone, for who knows how long, without running the A/C
That truck was sold in 2016 & the idle hours was probably 60% idle at 144,500 miles, i see that old truck at least once or twice a week & the new owner is still smiling.

My current 2016 Ram Ecodiesel is being treated the same way

I wouldn't Idle the engine, if there was any sort of building that i could enjoy the A/C in, but usually there is just an intersection, with nothing but a Stop Sign close by & just have to wait for my Contractor to show up

 

[2022 Tradesman]

I'm almost at 50% idle! I'd better get into the petal more often. Thanks for the advice on %

 

[Tach_tech]

I'm almost at 50% idle! I'd better get into the petal more often. Thanks for the advice on %

You are actually at 27%, which is still kinda high.

 

[2022 Tradesman]

Noted, thank you.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

Well well well. Ever since I started investigating my engine idle and drive hours relationships (see posts 83 & 84 on page 9), I've been logging those hours every two to four weeks. Since I realized my drive hours had almost certainly reset at some point in the truck's past, and thus were probably MUCH higher than they registered on the display, I wasn't worried about regularly logging them as much as when I first made post 83.

Well yesterday I happened to scroll down to the idle/drive hours page on my truck's display and GUESS WHAT I SAW???



Caught red handed!

For the data-driven people, here is how my idle and drive hours had been progressing up to this day:



So, rest assured, the drive hours most certainly DO reset, for what reason I don't know. But if you're concerned, just log them once every two weeks or so for about 10 data points, graph their slopes like I did, and project those slopes from 0 to estimate what your true drive hours likely are, instead of the knee-capped value registered on the truck's display.

I hope this helps put some of your concerns to rest. Good luck driving!

 

[ffx2018]

Hahaha, here's my 2014 back in June with 118K miles, she's got 122K now. This was an ex fleet truck.
View attachment 225885

Warm idle oil pressure is 47 psi.
I run Redline 5W30 with Royal Purple 20-820 filter. Bad 'hemi tick' from multiple broken manifold bolts but runs like a scalded cat.
Use a good oil, good oil filter, keep up on maintenance and don't stress.
I repeat, use a good oil filter. Idle pressure was much lower with other filters on my truck. If your oil pressure is on the 30s at idle, try a different filter. Cheap insurance.
Just my experience, these hemis are particular and each one is different!

I'm glad to see this. I just bought a 18 6.4 with 80k miles and 1400 idle hours. Mine was fleet also. I'm gonna reach out to the former owner and see if I can get their maintenance spreadsheet.

 

[ffx2018]

To add to the last post, I bought the truck in AZ and before driving it home went to a hole in the wall shop to change the oil. I didn't see what brand oil or what brand filter he put in there. 1000 miles later and back at home my oil pressure at idle is 30 psi and 53 cruising. I used to have a beat up 350 in a jaguar that had like 5 psi at hot idle. I should probably change the oil myself now so I know whats in it.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

@ffx2018 those oil pressures are normal, and what my 2017 HEMI 1500 runs at, as do most other trucks from what I've seen on this forum. 30 psi might be on the lower end of the low side, but still within reason (I think mine hovers around 32 psi at the lowest). That's perfectly normal.

As to oil changes, yes doing your own gives you greater peace of mind, and by saving labor, you might even be able to afford a little better oil.

 

[ffx2018]

Is there an oil pressure difference between the 5.7l and 6.4l? When I added my comment about having 30 psi, it was several days after reading the post directly above it, which mentions having 47 psi. I didn't notice 30 is not good at the time.

I'm looking online for oil and filter now.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

@ffx2018woops, didn't see you had a 6.4. Some of the other guys here will be able to chime in. Or you can directly search for normal 6.4L oil pressures.

Sorry!