Does anyone know, on average, how long a car/truck engine will idle on a full tank of gas? The only information that I have is from someone who works a checkpoint for a dog sled race and leaves his jeep idling, with the heat on, for 24 hours. He says that he uses a half of tank gas. With a 20 gallon tank this would work out to less than one half of a gallon per hour.

Paul

It completely depends on the engine, what kind of gas, what kind of modifications, the way the computer is set up, ect. You really have to test it out for yourself on your vehicle.

It occurs to me that if you are going to be dependent on an automobile and its fuel supply for heat, you would be better off buying the samllest gas powered generator that is capable of powering one of those oil filled space heaters. With this setup, the generator can be placed outside of the car and the heater inside with just the power cord running to the generator. The oil filled space heaters have no glowing elements that could start a fire and they have thermostats for heat control. They take up the space of one passenger, and the small generator will use a lot less gas than any regular automobile, can be located downwind away from the car, and will not screw up your automatic transmission by running the engine for long periods of time without moving.

Be sure to have some sort of petcock installed in your gas tank so that you can refill the generator, or have a siphon that can get past the anti-theft fill nozzles of the newer cars.

Good luck!

Bountyhunter

I'm not entierly sure if its what bountyhunter meant, but you can get tent heaters, which I would imagine would work for a car. I posted the link in the "bathing" thead. Its the same company.
http://tinyurl.com/2k66m

Just a thought
Martin

That's an interesting idea. I looked and found that Honda's 1600 watt hand-held generator uses 1.1 gallons of gas in 4 hours at rated load. This would give you roughly twice the economy of running you vehicle engine (at .5 gallon per hour). And twice the heating time with the same amount of fuel. The question that remains is how warm can a oil filled space heater keep the passenger compartment of a vehicle? I may have to experiment with this. If it is capable of warming the interior well this could mean that your fuel usage could even be reduced further when the heater thermostat begins to cycle.

Also the only automatic transmission that I'm aware of that would have a problem with long term idling would be a Chrysler rear wheel drive hydraulic unit. Because the transmission cooler system is by-passed in park. But this can easily be rectified by placing it in neural.

Paul

I believe that he meant the DeLonghi oil-filled radiator:

http://www.zyworld.com/DELONGHIUSA/OILFILLED1.htm

Paul

I haven't heard issues with auto transmissions, what do you know about autos and long idles? Something to help would be to insulate your vehicle. I thought my 2000 S-10 would be real cold in the winter because my old rusted out 88 always was so i insulated it before the first winter. The hardware stores have this stuff in a roll that looks like bubble wrap with aluminum foil on both sides. They had a sample of it folded up like a little bag that you could stick your hand in. In a few seconds your hand starts to sweat from the heat being reflected. I bought the biggest roll they had for $40, pulled all the interior plastic and the headliner out of my truck and used aluminum duct tape to stick this foil wrap in. I can drive to work in zero degree weather with the heater fan on the lowest setting and the mixture in the middle between cold and hot. I've been planning on running a second battery in my truck, been wondering if a small 12v electric heater would work for a couple hours, then run the engine for 1/2 hour to charge, run for a couple ours again if needed.

>I haven't heard issues with auto transmissions, what do you know about autos and long idles?

Like I wrote earlier the only problem I know is that on non-electronic Chrysler transmissions there is no oil flowing through the transmission cooler while in park. But other than that I have never heard of anything else in other models. If the engine is running the transmission pump is also, and it is supplying transmission fluid to the moving parts of the transmission.

The insulation is a good idea. My farther-in-law had a conversion van that was fully insulated. On the coldest day the front heater kept the whole van very comfortable, even with all the glass.

I had thought about a spare battery with a 12 volt heater also. But the ones that I have seen have seemed cheaply built and not very efficient. Have you ever seen anything worth buying?

Paul

Oops I meant the Auto trans question for Bountyhunter. My ISP was having issues and it took so long for the page to load I started to forget who/what I was replying to.
I don't have any electric heater yet because I haven't been able to find a decent quality one either. Have started looking at RV parts suppliers hopeing maybe better quality than the cheapies but they don't seem much different.
I've thought about makeing some window coverings, get some cloth that matches the interior and cut it and some of the insulation into shapes that match the window then sew the insulation inside the cloth and store them somewhere in the cab just in case I ever would get stuck somewhere I could stick those up in the windows.

Turnsouth:

You are right, I did mean the Delonghi.

Eugene:

I am from the old school where cars with automatic transmissions had warnings in their owners manuals to not idle without moving for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I never did find out the reason for that and if it is a matter of oil cooling via the tranny pump, then I stand corrected. If it is a matter of pressure being applied to the various mechanisms that make the tranny work, I would think that situation applies to todays cars also. I suppose the best one to answer that question is a transmission specialist that can give us the best information on todays transmissions.

Would a generator that uses .5 gal. per hour be necessary to run the Delonghi? I never did the wattage math on it.

Bountyhunter

IIRC a lot of older cars had the oil pump in the rear which would actually allow them to be push started and towed lond distances without problems. Somewhere along the way (I bet it came about the same time as Fuel Injection) the manufacturers figured out that the average car spends as much time ideling at lights or in traffic than it does moving so they moved the pump to the front where it would be run by the engine. This means you can't tow most momdern autos for long distances (such as behind an RV as you travel the US) or push start one, but it won't hurt to idel. I have found that my truck in very hot summer weather with the AC on max can overheat the eninge because the engine driven fan cannot keep up at idel speed. I have to shift to N and rev the engine a bit to get enough airflow. I'm planning on seperating the transmission cooler from the radiator and also installing an electric fan on the AC condenser to help out there.

You could also build one of these gas powered VW heaters into your vehicle that should last you until the battery or gas in your vehicle runs out.

http://www.espar.com/htm/specials/sitemap.htm

Bountyhunter

Bountyhunter,

You can get surplus Espar, Eberspaecher, Swingfire with Turboheater that was used in NATO military Unimog vehicles, a survival vehicle if I ever saw one. They only need electricity to start. Once started they nolonger need electricty. The exhaust gasses are used by the turbocharger as a blower. They can be obtained in either gas or diesel versions in either 12 volt at 12.5 amps or 24 volt at 6.25 amps. They even have their own fuel tank. They are also portable and can be setup to heat a small building, i.e. shelter. Factory rebuilt units can be had for less than $200. You can usually find them on eBay from time to time. These are very safe units that military grunts have used for years.