I have a new '07 5.9 cummins and I have been told not to shut the truck off and start it a lot, people tell me to jsut let it run when you go into the post office and if your going to be getting back in it in 5-10 minutes to let it run cause starting and stopping the diesel's is bad on them. And i do a lot of driving and service calls for my business I drive over 1000 miles a week locally here around town so I do a lot of idleing. Well I come on the forums here and read all this stuff about idleing being bad and causing injectors to go. What should I do??? If I go to the stealer and have them turn on the manual high idle feature will it still hurt the truck to let it idle at 1000-1200 rpm a lot???

 

You need to be in neutral with the E-Break on so fluid is flowing the the converter, in park you can run the TQ dry and you don't won't that to happen

 

Really I never heard that before about the tq and idleing, is the tq dry when your in gear and idleing at a light?

 

The pump doesn't run in park from what I have read, but in all the rest of the gears your pump is ingaged.

Someone who knows more than I do will jump in I hope, but I was taken back when I first read of it not pumping to TQ in park

Here's where I first read it https://dodgeforum.com/post.asp?do=r...amp;toStyle=tm

 

You are correct the torque converter (TQ) does not pump fluid in Park but does so in all the other gears. Now the new 6-speed auto may be different so we will have to wait and see if it is the same or not. Oh you can replace the valve body to make it pump fluid in park but it’s not a cheap item to replace around $500.00.

 

mmmm...could some one check on wat year trucks that are affected by this? i let mine idel all the time when i get ready in the morning..run into the store.. or just simply wait for someone and my truck runs fine.

 

If i'm going to be back in it in less than 15min, I let 'er idle. Expecially if its cold out. Remeber, diesels have high compression which means its harder for the starter to turn the engine over. I let mine idle to help out the starter more than the engine.

 

All Dodge trucks. Even in the owners manual it states to not the let the engine idel for more then 5 minutes. Ideling longer is not only hard on the tranny its also hard on the Turbo.

 

The biggest problem with idleing a diesel is not having a load on it. It doesn't build any heat and gums up your injectors pretty quick. It also doesn't get all the other metal parts up to temp very quick and you end up getting excessive blow by.

One thing I do in the morning when I idle it, is to put in "D" and set the pparking brake. This brings your EGT's up between 150 - 200*'s higher, loads the engine a bit and flows fluid to the TC.

Now, if it's already warm, I put it in "N" and set the brake.

When I get out, I have the turbo timer set to 1 min for normal daily driving crap. This usally gets the EGT's down into the 270 - 290 range. Towing, I bump the time up depending on how hard or heavy I had it.

 

Sounds like an engine brake would be appreciated here...