Inquiry for diesel drivers

[RealUnimportant]

Diesels have been popular here in Europe forever, even in the colder countries that need a preheater to prevent it turning into slush. Mileage from a diesel is almost always better, and with modern turbo technology performance is almost identical to petrol.

[kpzra]

Towing ~18000 we get 12 MPG, a gasser with a similar load was getting 4MPG. We average 25MPG when not towing, no matter what is in the bed. The blazer is hard to judge since it's modified, but even that with 1 ton running gear, 37" HMMV tires with run flat inserts, 6" lift and no turbo gets 22ish. I'd like to get one of the diesel VWs when we have the money. A friend has one and get's mid 40MPG in Seattle traffic. Plus, having everything take the same fuel is nice.

[Shalom]

I'd like to get one of the diesel VWs when we have the money. A friend has one and get's mid 40MPG in Seattle traffic. Plus, having everything take the same fuel is nice.

If money was no object, I wouldn't mind driving a first-gen VW Touareg diesel, but the diesel engine was a $14K option above the cost of the base vehicle. Still, 10 cylinders, 309 horsepower, 553 lb-ft of torque, and 24mpg... :drool:

And it can run on used french-fry oil with the appropriate fuel heater.

Diesel locomotives also tend to idle all day in the colder months, because they don't use antifreeze in the coolant. (The larger prime movers have individual cylinder assemblies rather than a cast block, and there are so many places where coolant can leak into the oil that they just gave up and let it happen. Water in the lube oil will just boil off harmlessly, but ethylene glycol eats bearings, as I discovered when the head gasket let go on my 99 Chevy. ^*&^&% dexcool...) If they shut it down, they have to drain the coolant (~295 gallons!) if it's below freezing, and then refill it before they can run the engine again.

[Chromatix]

It depends a lot on the type of engine, of course. Generally any engine can be shut down for a few minutes without going cold or losing lubrication - except for special cases like big turbochargers.

British Rail had specific guidelines on what to do with diesel locos when not in immediate use. There were a number of different factors to take into account, including the pollution hazard at particular stations (based on roof design), whether power was required for train heating/lighting, and how long the engine would need to warm up again before being put under load. The main aim was to avoid both wastage of fuel and excessive smoke, the early engines in particular being much less clean than modern ones.

But in general the engine would be shut down if there was a significant period of waiting ahead, and turned on again a few minutes before departure. It takes more than a few hours to lose all the heat from the coolant, so this would often happen even in winter as long as there was a non-engine-dependent source of carriage heating (eg. a boiler in the early days, or a shore ETH supply later).

DMUs have smaller engines than locomotives, but the same principles applied to them. Quite recently I saw a DMU being "woken up" according to approximately the old principles. Almost immediately after being started, the engines were revved up to recharge the air reservoirs more quickly, and only once that was complete were the doors opened for passengers.

Starting a diesel from cold, however, is clearly something to be done infrequently if possible. My dad's little van only had one glow plug, probably serving the middle two cylinders (of four), and no turbo. The result was that on a cold start, it would emit huge amounts of choking grey smoke from the back until the heat spread to the remaining two cylinders. Something like this, in fact:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpQivta6MQ

[wolfie]

What about the risk of someone just hopping into the truck if it's still running? On the big rigs, in particular, I would assume that there is some way to lock the truck while it's still running, and then allow for keyless entry, even if it's just something like a code-entry keypad, no?

The Peterbilt of Natural Selection has an ignition lock cylinder where the key can be removed in the "on" position, so I could (but don't - I pay for my own fuel) take out the key and lock the doors with the engine still running. On "key only comes out in the OFF position" vehicles, you could lock the doors with a second key.

Towing ~18000 we get 12 MPG, a gasser with a similar load was getting 4MPG.

A pickup with a lightweight (an EMPTY 53 foot dry van weighs around 14,000 pounds) trailer getting only 4 MPG? With 40,000+ pounds in the box, going up and down hills, and with winter (less energy content) fuel, I still beat 5 MPG in the Peterbilt of Natural Selection. In summer, I average (some heavy loads, some light ones) a bit over 6 MPG.

[kpzra]

Car trailer loaded with a truck and other stuff, and he had the crappy V8 in it. Summer time is PCS time for the military, so they were loaded very similar to us. This was his average with going through mountains with cruise set at 75.

[Dadeo]

Kinda like turning the lights off & on in your house. If you turn lights off for a minute and then turn them back on, you actually use *more* electricity than if you'd just left them on.

This is an urban myth. Except for fluorescent tubes, the power inrush lasts only a fraction of a second. Rather than go into detail, here's the Mythbusters experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgM0N7GD5Ic.

[EricKei]

Dadeo -- That's what I thought.

One of my roomies, who is an electrician, insists that it's no urban myth. I should show him that video ^_^

[Zenova]

I drive a diesel car (not a truck)
Its quite a modern engine, a 1.9dCi made in 2007. (dCi is a common-rail high pressure turbocharged engine)

I dont have any problems with turning the engine on and off, but with the way my car's key works I find myself leaving it running if im quickly running into a shop to buy smokes or something and i know i wont be long.
It uses a card instead of a key, and when its running I can take the card out, lock the car and the engine will still run. If you try to drive it without the card, it says "NO CARD DETECTED" on the dash and the engine cuts out.
So its just handy for me to leave it running and locked if im only going to be a couple minutes. As far as I'm aware the petrol version of that car has the same system, so its not just the diesel.

[HYHYBT]

I realize this isn't *quite* on-topic... but diesels and keys, it seems like as good a place as any to ask... Dad has an F250 diesel, either 2004 or 5, with an aggravating little lever you have to press to get it to let you turn the key back to the remove position. Anybody know why, and especially why *that* vehicle has it but the other Fords (gasoline-powered) in the family from that time period don't?

[Chromatix]

My guess is the anti-theft steering lock. They don't want the driver to accidentally lock up the steering while driving, if they have turned it off to avoid further damage from a fault. (You can still coast to a safe stopping position with no power, and you can still steer at highway speeds without power assistance. There is a power reserve for the brakes.)

Alternatively, people might keep a lot of valuable work keys on the same keyring as the ignition key - the F250 being big enough to have more commercial users than private - and the extra fiddle makes it much harder to grab the whole bunch quickly, doubly so because it's an unusual feature.

[HYHYBT]

The second one, possibly... the first, I don't quite get, simply because steering locks are so common and have been for so long, and other vehicles don't have this feature.

I was thinking it might somehow have something to do with the manual transmission, but can't quite make that make sense either.

[Shalom]

I was thinking it might somehow have something to do with the manual transmission, but can't quite make that make sense either.

I just pulled the owner's manual of my 1988 Chevy S-10 Blazer out of the car, and it says that manual transmission cars have the key release lever, and automatics don't. It has this to say:

PARKING: ( . . . )
4. Turn the key to "LOCK". On vehicles with floor-shift manual transmissions, press the key release lever and turn the key to "LOCK".
5. Remove the key.

SECTION 2A: STEERING COLUMN CONTROLS ( . . . )
"LOCK" - Normal parking position. It locks the ignition and prevents normal use of the steering wheel and shift controls. The ignition key cannot be turned to "LOCK" and removed until the shift lever is moved to "P" (Park) on automatic transmission models (shift to "R" (Reverse) on manual transmission models). If you have a manual transmission, "LOCK" prevents normal use of the steering wheel. The ignition key cannot be turned to "LOCK" without pressing down the key release lever.

My guess is that the column shifter depresses an interlock inside the column when you put it in Park which allows the cylinder to turn past OFF, but since the standard shift doesn't have anything attached to the column, they put that lever there to trigger the interlock instead.

Not sure what happens with a floor-shift automatic, though. I don't think this model ever had one of those, except on the one-off 1991 Typhoon.

[wolfie]

My guess is that the column shifter depresses an interlock inside the column when you put it in Park which allows the cylinder to turn past OFF, but since the standard shift doesn't have anything attached to the column, they put that lever there to trigger the interlock instead.

Not sure what happens with a floor-shift automatic, though. I don't think this model ever had one of those, except on the one-off 1991 Typhoon.

Could be done with a cable on the floor-shift automatic. With standard shift, it's not simply a matter of not being on the column (old-fashioned "three on the tree" would be on the column), but one big difference between automatic and standard is that automatic has a lever position (Park) that is NEVER used while the vehicle is moving, but standards don't.

With automatics being so common, I wonder how many cops get pissed off at people with standard when they pull them over, and wait to get out until the "customer" puts the car in "park" to avoid drive-aways while they're out of the cruiser. They're waiting for the backup lights to flash when the lever is moved from "drive" to "park" (passes through "neutral" and "reverse"), but that won't happen with a standard.

[HYHYBT]

So how does the lever help with this, and (while the subject is up anyway) don't they make cars with column shifters anymore?