Am I In Wisconsin, Or Is This Hoth?

Seriously though, you know it's cold when you get a message across your Qualcomm from the company expressly ordering you not to shut your truck off. Be careful out there, guys and gals. This weather is no joke, especially the wind chill. Stay safe and warm until sane weather returns...well, relatively sane, anyway.

Yeah, it's been a brutal start to winter - no question about it. I live outside Buffalo, NY and we're in the midst of our third storm of the year already. I've gotten over 6 feet of snow already this year and it's only the first week in January! We've also had below zero temperatures numerous times already.

The Farmer's Almanac said it was going to be a rough winter. It could turn to summer tomorrow and they'd still be right!

If you're getting slammed in WI then we in Ohio are next. Stay safe and warm driver..

So I have a question. Trucks have idle controls, and they typically shut off your truck around 4 minutes unless you depress the clutch or rev the motor up slightly. So are you expected to stay awake the whole time or do they have a way to over-ride the control from your O.C.?

Deweykid, that's a great question, and shows you are a very observant person. Here's how this typically works. Built within that idle control system is a temperature sensor that will allow the truck to idle if the temperature outside is above or below the settings that your company has set it at. So with my truck sitting here in 13 below temps right now it will idle all I need which is good because my little bunk heater just won't combat these temps very well. It does pretty well until the temp starts getting down to about 5 degrees and then it just starts losing the battle.

Typically if the temperature is above around eighty degrees and below thirty degrees you shouldn't have too much difficulty with idling your truck. These are typical settings at the company I work at, I don't know how this is handled by other folks. I still will send in a message to my dispatcher to let him know that I am going to be idling the truck, it's always best to keep communication lines open with those guys just to sort of play the CYA game with them. Open communication is always better than misunderstandings arising later on when a brief message on the qualcomm could have avoided a lot of unnecessary grief.

Thanks Old School. That actually makes sense. I know if I personally had to sit up all night (or day) depending when I take my 10hrs just to keep the truck running, I would be one extremely ****ed off Cowboy. I appreciate the clarification.

Here at Prime, I have had Freightliners & now a KW T680. In each case I can override the idle cutoff by setting the cruise control @ about 800 RPM's.

I would think the same may very well work the same at other companies.

Ernie

Here at Prime, I have had Freightliners & now a KW T680. In each case I can override the idle cutoff by setting the cruise control @ about 800 RPM's.

I would think the same may very well work the same at other companies.

Ernie

My truck can do the same thing. Just set the cruise control without touching the throttle and it'll get the RPMS to 800 and stay that way. The thing about using that temperature sensor is that once the desired temperature is reached. The truck shuts off. You want to keep it going nonstop. So it turning off on you can be a bad thing in these circumstances. Its also very difficult for the engine to turn on and off nonstop a dozen times an hour.