I leave mine running. even if I pay cash. I will run in and club it, lock the doors with keyless remote/factory alarm. and fuel and leave after. I figure it has to sit for a minute or two running for the turbo anyway, might as well leave her purring.

 

I never leave mine running, dont see the need. If I have to run in somewhere for less than a minute or so I will leave it on but really, whats the point?? Some will argue that its hard on the starter and it will wear faster. A new starter is less than $200 while diesel here is up to $3.25 a gallon. While picking my son up for school I have to wait in a car line to get him sometimes for up to 20 minutes, I have seen what my change in mpg is while I sit there on the lie-o-meter.

 

Yea but you also gotta figure how many gallons will these engines use idling all day compared to how you drive. I made roughly 18mpg on a 489 mile trip and idling i would guess we could run almost all day on a gallon. I've slept in a Pete witha C-15 and the gauge didn't really move, while yes it had 150 gallon tanks it sat for 10 hours idling. I'm still learning about these engines, but I don't see using 200 dollars of fuel idling in even a year when it only sets for about 30 min. on average a week for me, sometimes more. While yes I have yet to have my starter or anything for that fact go out I say leave it run just so your oil keeps moving and its not going and stopping. 145k on the stock VP44 and rest of the original pickup.

 

A C15 Cat's gonna burn a gallon or more of fuel per hour of idling. These trucks don't burn anywhere near that much in an hour but fuel is expensive and I'm from the cheap bastard school of waste not want not. I always shut mine off. I think it's crazy to idle unecessarily and starters aren't so weak that they can't take it.

 

A locomotive uses 9 gallonsper hour during idle, and thats 16 cylinder/4390 hp.

 

I was a fuelman for a trucking company and None of the trucks I fueled where turned off most of the time while fueling. diesel you dont have to worry about it exploding. Matter of fact my Mack never got turned off my whole shift of 12hrs because of the posability of it not starting back up lol I just left it at high idle when not in it.

 

Yo Bird, that's a COOL stripe you've got there !!

 

Consider this:
while fueling your CTD you will use less fuel than you would have had you truned off and restarted the little beast under the hood.
Not sure about the numbers with the CTD but the Hemi plays something like this 1 cup of fuel to idle for 5-7 minutes 3.5 cups to start.

 

IIRC in a modern gas Fuel Injection engine, it doesn’t take as much fuel to start a warm engine when compared to letting it idle for 5 or more minutes. BTW it’s not the diesel fuel you really need to worry about catching fire at the pump (thou it could happen) it’s the gas, all it take is the right amount of fuel in the air and a spark to set it off. As for semis not shutting down when fueling, take a look at how far away the gas pumps are from the truck fuel island at most truck stops!

 

I shut her down out of being cheap and a force of habit from driving gassers my whole life