"Idle" Chat (rant)

[nonnef]

Originally Posted by rh77

And waste a perfectly good potato? In some cases, we're talking DUAL exhausts here. I'd need to carry a sack of 'taters all over town!

RH77

Waste? Heck no, they're just cooking it for you!

Course I'd let them eat it... not sure I want one covered in the stuff coming out of a car...


Oh, and I'm from the south. If someone doesn't have a gun on them they have two in the car. Or in the baby stroller... needless to say, there is one hiding SOMEWHERE.

[thisisntjared]

so wait you guys havent heard that starting the motor consumes a considerable amount fuel? this of course depends on the car.

anyway, it is wrong for you to shut it off. thats like me walking into your house uninvited, and shutting off all the other lights in your house while you are in the kitchen, coincidentally, getting your cup of coffee.

[JanGeo]

Just so you know my xB uses 0.1 gph at idle and that comes out to half a penny a minute. shutting it off and starting again bumps it back up to .3gph for several minutes so keeping it running when I want a little A/C or HEAT is not so bad but most V6 engines burn .4-.5 gps so not as efficient and a V8 must be a bit more than that!

[JanGeo]

Not really the "leave the key on" without running is a bad idea for the Scion since Stability control and ABS brakes and Power Steering all require engine running properly as Toyota does not even recommend bump starting the engine even though I have on several occasions. I generally just let it idle when coasting and believe me the 3 turns stop to stop steering is very hard to turn without power steering even while moving and any emergency maneuver would be impossible witout power steering.

[cfg83]

theclencher -

Originally Posted by theclencher

Oh Man, you touched a raw nerve of mine!!!

It's EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME... people leaving their vehicles idling while filling up at gas stations- clearly illegal and unsafe but they do it anyway. People in parking lots coming/going then they run in to someone they know and gab for half an hour with their vehicle(s) idling. Unattended kids or people sleeping/reading/zoning out/doing whatever in vehicles in parking lots, vehicles left idling- why? Heat? A/C? Radio? People in slow drive-throughs- idle idle idle idle idle. Same thing waiting for long trains at RR crossings- idle idle idle idle idle. On a few occasions I have been out for a walk when all of a sudden a vehicle (9 times out of 10 a full-size pickup) starts up with nobody around- auto start. Never do they come out and get in it in the time I'm around to see it. Auto-starts = worst invention ever!!! When I see them advertised on TV I want to call the business up and tell them so! They should be OUTLAWED. Diesel owners are even worse!!! Some (many?) of them idle all day long! I'm not kidding! All those millions of pistons around the world at any given moment going up and down and up and down while going nowhere and producing no useful work- makes me crazy(er)!!! Here's one trailer park people are famous for: "tuning" their POS by constantly revving the engine. Like that accomplishes anything.

I too have been tempted to shut their engines off, or better yet if it's unlocked re-park it a block or two away. Extended idling is criminal, but we all know who the criminal on the wrong side of the law would be in that scenario... :sad:

Any note left on the vehicle will be either disregarded or met with a bad/angry response. I left a note on a truck that parked in the motorcycle parking lot at work one time, leaving no room for any motorcycles- the guy was furious when he found it! These sort of people- auto-start equipped gas hogs always left idling, then when they go they speed like hell- simply don't have FE on their "minds". Oil being a finite resource, pollution, cost, geo-political factors, stewardship of the earth- none of that exists in their worlds. A note or a lecture won't do it. They won't get FE on their minds until the cost of their waste hits them in the wallet. And it has to be a cost great enough to really leave a mark, as using the arguement of saving $100 or $200 or x amount of gallons of fuel in a year will have no effect. They are either wealthy or live on credit and so don't know the value of a dollar.

What can be done? Perhaps raise the price of fuel so high- like in Europe- that they have no choice but to take notice. Of course that penalizes the conscious people too. Perhaps, somehow, the gas guzzlers in addition to already paying more in fuel taxes by virtue of their greater consumption, also need to pay guzzler penalties at the pumps. Or maybe motorists who can demonstrate 30+ or 40+ or ? mpg get a rebate of some sort- wouldn't that be sweet! Extra money from gas pigs being taken from their wallets and going into ours!!!

100% agreement. I won't use any drive thrus for that reason. I still idle too much from habit, but I am getting better. I do my own "subliminal fightback" by putting a gas ration card in my rear window :



When a person asks me what the heck it is, I tell them. The idea is to get them to think from a different POV. I went looking for this a long time ago and found a picture from a website similar to this :

http://www.prewarbuick.com/features/...r_is_a_war_now

The idea is, I think a mileage card on an economy car is more patriotic than a yellow ribbon on an SUV.

CarloSW2

[kickflipjr]

I like gas ration card in the back window cfg. Did you just print that off the internet?

[cfg83]

kickflipjr -

Originally Posted by kickflipjr

I like gas ration card in the back window cfg. Did you just print that off the internet?

I found the A symbol at a site that I can't find right now. At the URL I posted above, the B and C are "good enough" quality images. I might change to a C because that's my first initial. From what I have learned, they were 4" high and 3" wide. I printed the A on a color printer at the 4" x 3" scale, laminated it, and put it in my car.

I loved what the article said :

The national maximum “Victory Speed” was 35 miles an hour.

35 MPH means that the car doesn't have to overcome air friction. They knew what they were talking about back then!

CarloSW2

[rh77]

Originally Posted by thisisntjared

so wait you guys havent heard that starting the motor consumes a considerable amount fuel? this of course depends on the car.

anyway, it is wrong for you to shut it off. thats like me walking into your house uninvited, and shutting off all the other lights in your house while you are in the kitchen, coincidentally, getting your cup of coffee.

This is an intriguing idea -- that I think we should investigate further.

Let's say the SUV's V-8 idles at 0.7gph and the time spent idling is 5 minutes or 0.05 gallons. How much fuel does it take to start a vehicle...

Does anyone have any data on warm startup fuel usage rates, on average?

We may have a myth to bust here.

BTW, I like the WWII ration stickers -- I bet a lot of old timers around here would get it.

RH77

[thisisntjared]

Originally Posted by rh77

We may have a myth to bust here.

i agree!

Originally Posted by JanGeo

my xB uses 0.1 gph at idle and that comes out to half a penny a minute. shutting it off and starting again bumps it back up to .3gph for several minutes

this is an interesting fact.

[DRW]

I believe MetroMPG has a graph on his website showing fuel consumption as the engine warmed up. http://www.metrompg.com/posts/warm-up-idling.htm

Here's a clip from my ecu:
enrichment multiplier at startup (similar to a carburetors 'choke' function)
1.14 1.20 1.26 1.40 1.60 1.80 2.2 3.00
Corresponding Engine Coolant temp F
186 176 125 95 69 46 19 3
So the colder it is, the more enrichment is used to start the engine. Some enrichment is used even when the engine is fully warm.
Luckily the ecu decreases this enrichment very rapidly once the engine is started, but a little enrichment remains for up to two minutes after starting. One technique to defeat it is to bump start and coast engine off for a few seconds until the enrichment timer counts down some. Keep in mind this is just from the ecu in my car, tho I think it may be similar to the way fuel is handled in other fuel injected cars.

I remember hearing a long time ago that it's not worth it to shut the engine off if you have to restart it within 15 seconds. It might be an old myth, but the sentiment is there. What's the minimum time an engine should be off in order to save gas when re-starting?

Metro MPG, (or anyone) could you perform another consumption test when the engine is started at different temperatures? It would be interesting to see if the high consumption rates you see in the first two minutes of startup are from this 'choke' function, or if it's just extra enrichment needed to run a cold engine. Maybe try starting with a colder and warmer engine temp, and see where the graphs match? This should show the difference in startup enrichment.