2022 High mileage motor failures?

[Cseybert]

I don’t know I seem to remember my 97 manual saying do not idle excessively. I will have to take a look and see if I can find it. I think it has something to do with low cylinder temperature wash down meaning diesel fluid and oil dilution, which intern is not good for the motor I believe.

 

[AH64ID]

I'm like you, very low idle hours and very high avg speed. But that doesn't change my opinion that an engine should be able to idle indefinitely without suffering a mechanical failure. Emissions failures? Absolutely. But valvetrain failures? No. Not too many years ago, a Cummins could idle its life away.

I guess it's not as big a deal as long as the owner knows not to idle for excessive periods of time. But then what's excessive? More than 10 minutes? 20? 30? 2 hours? Who really knows? Since the beginning of the trucking industry, drivers have idled their trucks all night for heating and cooling with no issues. If these newer engines aren't designed for extended idling, that just did away with running your truck at night for comfort, and/or survival. Seems unnecessary. The hotshot industry has been dominated by Dodge/Ram for years but I suppose that could change.

Cummins has always considered more than 10 minutes of idle per hour of operation to be excessive, on all their engines that I've looked at the manuals on. That's 16.7% idle time.

 

[reelman65]

I was really worried about this. "Covid Car" etc. Then I noticed my Trans leaking. Traded for 2024. Lost some money. Oh well

 

[Blythkd1]

Cummins has always considered more than 10 minutes of idle per hour of operation to be excessive, on all their engines that I've looked at the manuals on. That's 16.7% idle time.

That may have been their recommendation as well as other manufacturers but many have been idled for hours at a time for hundreds of thousand of miles successfully.

 

[AH64ID]

That may have been their recommendation as well as other manufacturers but many have been idled for hours at a time for hundreds of thousand of miles successfully.

If you don’t care what’s considered excessive, why ask?

Issues associated with wet stacking are not new, and have always been an issue.

 

[H3LZSN1P3R]

That may have been their recommendation as well as other manufacturers but many have been idled for hours at a time for hundreds of thousand of miles successfully.

Low RPM idling in a diesel has always been bad i have rebuilt just about every brand of mechanical diesel back in the day that failed because of cylinder washdown from low rpm idling

 

[Nick]

If you are going to idle for long periods you need to bump the idle up to at least a 1000 RPM's . Even in the old trucks you raised the idle to prevent cylinder wash / oil dilution .

 

[Blythkd1]

If you don’t care what’s considered excessive, why ask?

Issues associated with wet stacking are not new, and have always been an issue.

Low RPM idling in a diesel has always been bad i have rebuilt just about every brand of mechanical diesel back in the day that failed because of cylinder washdown from low rpm idling

Who was talking about wetstacking and cylinder washdown? I said valvetrain failures.

 

[AH64ID]

Who was talking about wetstacking and cylinder washdown? I said valvetrain failures.

Idle time is idle time, it’s never been good for diesel engines. That’s the point.

We also don’t know that the valvetrain failures from excessive idling aren’t being induced by fuel dilution induced during the extended idle.

 

[H3LZSN1P3R]

Who was talking about wetstacking and cylinder washdown? I said valvetrain failures.

Does not mater what part of the engine fails it still needs a rebuild or significant repair and still considered a failure idling is and always has been bad for all engines

 

[Blythkd1]

I never said extended idling wasn't the best for a diesel engine but the simple fact of the matter is, millions of them have idled overnight most nights for years and half a million to a million miles without issue. Been there and done that.... a LOT.

The issues caused by idling diesel engines in pickups for extended periods of time shouldn't be something that's experienced by the casual pickup owner, only hot shotters. Most owners that don't use their trucks for a living shouldn't encounter failures in any engine hard parts in the first couple hundred thousand, I con't care how much you idle them.

Did Ram owners see valvetrain issues prior to the new and improved valvetrain? New in 2019, was it? I'm thinking not. I wasn't that in tune with Ram back then but the Cummins engine and its durability was nothing short of legendary, even to owners of other brands of trucks.

Back when I was hauling a lot more than I am now, I idled a Duramax overnight routinely and when I sold it at 333k miles, it still fired right up, ran like a top and burned no oil. I routinely ran oil analysis at 10-12k OCI and it came back perfect every time. The lab kept telling me to run it 20k miles. So are you telling me that a Cummins can't do that and never could? Come on. You guys knows better than that.

 

[Will_T]

If you are going to idle for long periods you need to bump the idle up to at least a 1000 RPM's . Even in the old trucks you raised the idle to prevent cylinder wash / oil dilution .

Does this solve any issues related to excessive idle? If you use the idle up control, you can easily get the rpms to above 1000. I usually do it if I have to leave the truck idling for a few minutes. But when jumping in and out backing into a tight campsite, I do not idle up repeatedly.

On a related note, my truck right from the start has done what I think is way overestimate idle time. My use of the truck is probably about 85% towing and 15% around town when the truck rather than the car is needed. Granted I only have about 10,000 miles on the truck, but when using to tow the typical routine is some idle time hooking up then 40 to 400 miles of mostly highway driving, then some idle when getting into campsite and unhooking. And probably 1/2 of that idle time is ramped up to over 1000 rpm. When driving the other 15% of the time, I do not idle long at all on startup or shutdown so mostly driving in town with the normal stop lights etc. BUT my EVIC says the truck has 27% idle time!! I know that cannot possibly be correct. If I use my truck miles and total engine hours to figure how many miles the truck has travelled per each engine hour, it is just under 40 so not sure what to think about that. Seems like if the engine has really idled 27% of the time, that number would be less than 40 as when idling, it would be about as close to zero mph as you can get. So, if 27% of engine time was at 0mph, then the remaining 71% would have to average over 60mph to get that 40mph overall average. But maybe I am mis-thinking the math? My top speed when towing is 60-65mph so average is likely closer to 40 just from the engine hours when not "idling". Maybe this is taking things off topic as idle hours is not the main point of this thread. If so, let me know and I will edit this out to its own thread. Thanks.

 

[AH64ID]

Does this solve any issues related to excessive idle? If you use the idle up control, you can easily get the rpms to above 1000. I usually do it if I have to leave the truck idling for a few minutes. But when jumping in and out backing into a tight campsite, I do not idle up repeatedly.

On a related note, my truck right from the start has done what I think is way overestimate idle time. My use of the truck is probably about 85% towing and 15% around town when the truck rather than the car is needed. Granted I only have about 10,000 miles on the truck, but when using to tow the typical routine is some idle time hooking up then 40 to 400 miles of mostly highway driving, then some idle when getting into campsite and unhooking. And probably 1/2 of that idle time is ramped up to over 1000 rpm. When driving the other 15% of the time, I do not idle long at all on startup or shutdown so mostly driving in town with the normal stop lights etc. BUT my EVIC says the truck has 37% idle time!! I know that cannot possibly be correct. If I use my truck miles and total engine hours to figure how many miles the truck has travelled per each engine hour, it is just under 40 so not sure what to think about that. Seems like if the engine has really idled 37% of the time, that number would be way less than 40 as when idling, it would be about as close to zero as you can get.

My 22 does seem to count idle hours a little differently than my 18 did.

Similar driving and I sold the 18 with 8.1% idle time and the 22 is at 11.3%. The 22 did get more delivery idle time than the 18 did thou, which is frustrating and slow to recover from but its slowly been dropping.

That being said, 37% idle time is huge IMO.

What are your idle and total hours?

 

[Will_T]

What are your idle and total hours?

Edit; Correction - About 300 total / 80 idle. But as you can see from my math above, that cannot possibly be accurate or I would have to be driving way faster than I do for those 220 hours, right? Assuming the 80 "idle" hours are at basically 0mph.

 

[AH64ID]

About 220/80. But as you can see from my math above, that cannot possibly be accurate or I would have to be driving about 85mph for those 220 hours, right? Assuming the 80 "idle" hours are at basically 0mph.

Just to confirm, that’s 220 total hours and not drive hours?

 

[Will_T]

Just to confirm, that’s 220 total hours and not drive hours?

Thanks. That was a good question and since I had been going by memory from when I last drove the truck about 4 weeks ago, I just went out and checked. Indeed the 220 is drive hours. total is 300. So idle % is actually more like 27%. I will fix my previous post. Still seems way high for my driving especially since I often idle up to over 1000 rpm. That was the reason for my question about whether idling up to over 1000 rpm helps for the issues described in this thread? Idling up that way still seems to be counted as idle time by the computer.

Edit: Reason I asked that is that I don't really care what the EVIC says as long as it never gets held against me by RAM. But if idling up to over 1000 prevents as much as possible the issues described in this thread, I will do it even more than I do now just for good measure. Although, at the rate I am driving, by the time this truck is "high mileage", my own personal miles will have run out and the next owner will be on the hook!

 

[AH64ID]

Thanks. That was a good question and since I had been going by memory from when I last drove the truck about 4 weeks ago, I just went out and checked. Indeed the 220 is drive hours. total is 300. So idle % is actually more like 27%. I will fix my previous post. Still seems way high for my driving especially since I often idle up to over 1000 rpm. That was the reason for my question about whether idling up to over 1000 rpm helps for the issues described in this thread? Idling up that way still seems to be counted as idle time by the computer.

Edit: Reason I asked that is that I don't really care what the EVIC says as long as it never gets held against me by RAM. But if idling up to over 1000 prevents as much as possible the issues described in this thread, I will do it even more than I do now just for good measure. Although, at the rate I am driving, by the time this truck is "high mileage", my own personal miles will have run out and the next owner will be on the hook!

Idling at 1000 rpms is still idle time.

Idling at 1000 does help with potential engine issues, but still counts as idle time. It’s still good for the emissions system. Idling as little as possible is still the best answer.

I firmly believe that idle hours were incorporated into the EVIC so that Ram can prove excessive idle hours when issues arise, generally associated with the emissions system.

 

[Will_T]

Idling at 1000 rpms is still idle time.

Idling at 1000 does help with potential engine issues, but still counts as idle time. It’s still good for the emissions system. Idling as little as possible is still the best answer.

I firmly believe that idle hours were incorporated into the EVIC so that Ram can prove excessive idle hours when issues arise, generally associated with the emissions system.

Thanks. If that is why it is in the EVIC, then the fact that it is inaccurate for some of us is potentially a big deal. It becomes your word against the EVIC reading if there is ever an issue. There is no way I have that many true idle hours. The EVIC has to be counting some of the drive time as idling. If most of my hours and driving were around town, or idling when hunting on forest roads like some do, maybe. But since I just hook up and drive highway miles, how is it even possible the EVIC says 27% idle time??? I suppose I could bring this up at my service appt. this week, but what's the point.

Below is an example of what I find when searching so maybe it is worth it to ask the dealership to pull numbers from the PCM to see if those are different than what the EVIC shows.

You can't use those display hours to make decisions; the hour displays are not trustworthy.
Lots of anecdotal evidence that the DRIVE hours randomly reset to 0.

I haven't gone back to the dealer to verify the numbers on my truck, but apparently the accurate counts are stored in the PCM.

And I found a couple year old thread that had left my memory where I had posted that my idle time was at 27% at 3,000 miles. So at least it is consistent! There I speculated that not only does the truck count "high idle" time, it must also count some of driving time like coasting on slight downhills as idle. I also remember that one time a couple of summers ago, I looked at the idle time while driving. Then looked again 3 hours later when arriving at a campground. The whole 3 hours was flat desert highway with at most gentle ups and downs. Likely averaged 50+ mph for those 3 hours. And the idle time had increased by 1 hour when I arrived at the campground. Maybe when I first checked it was close to clocking over the next idle hour, but still none of those 3 hours should have been counted as idle.

Anyway, @AH64ID thanks for your input, I am going to stop this discussion for now as it really is a bit off from the threads topic.

 

[mbarber84]

It’s worth pointing out that, on a 2019+ truck, once the engine accumulates 2 hours of idle time (or very low speed operation) within a preprogrammed time interval, the truck will automatically increase the engine idle speed (900rpm) for up to an hour depending on operating conditions. This is known as “hydrocarbon desorption mode”. The idea is to keep cylinder temperatures up for better combustion, reduces unburned fuel being sent downstream to the emissions system, and also keeps the emission system warm enough that condensation doesn’t form inside. (Water is detrimental to the sensors in the system)


Point blank: These trucks should not be idled. The negative effects of idle time far outweigh any realistic benefit to leaving them running. If idle time is absolutely necessary, you should do so using the high idle feature. And yes, valvetrain damage can occur from excessive idle time as carbon build up and other partially combusted materials remain in the cylinder and valve seats.

The argument for idling “lots of people do it” is not valid, nor is it a hill to die on. Lots of people do things that are counterproductive to their health, like smoke cigarettes, despite years of factual data and real world experience to support why it you shouldn’t smoke. What others choose to do is not sound footing on which to stand, especially when the entirety of the industry can provide solid evidence as to why you shouldn’t idle. Unless you need the truck to stay warm in order to stay alive, shut it off.

 

[AH64ID]

The thought that diesels love to idle is a holdover from when they were very difficult to start.

No engine likes to idle without a load.