How much does idling really cost you?
The average class 8 truck burns 1.25 to 1.5 gph (gallons per hour) when idling.
By JOHN EWING
Truckers Connection
7/22/2008
As the cost of fuel continues to climb, fuel surcharges can help you keep your head above water, but if you want to stay profitable you need to take trip planning seriously. Among the requirements in planning your trip are where to fuel and weighing the pros and cons of speed. Timing is also a critical issue as the amount of fuel consumed getting out of LA at 4 in the afternoon, or trying to get through the Chicago area on I-80 at 9 a.m. could put an otherwise profitable trip into the red. This is a big topic so we’ll touch on each of the various aspects in a separate column. This month let’s take a look at timing and another important consideration, idling.
Planning your trip so that you travel through the congested areas at the best possible times is an extremely important issue, not only for MPG but also in order to maximize your 11 hours of driving time. If you’re a night driver and occasional day worker, then achieving this goal is relatively simple. If your 11 hours are from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m., chances are you won’t be hitting much traffic. Most of us aren’t into driving nights, so for the rest of us there are basically two methods that we can use to achieve this goal. The first method is to plan the start of your day so that you will arrive in major population centers either after rush hour or in the middle of the day. You can generally do this by simply starting your day a couple of hours sooner or a couple hours later. If you’re going to have to go through a couple of major metropolitan areas in the same day you can use your spare three hours to avoid the rush at the second location. You could also use this strategy to get yourself positioned for a delivery the next day. Waiting out rush hour on the outskirts of town and then moving in close to the delivery in the evening is much easier on your nerves and your MPG.
While we’re talking about sitting this brings up another topic: idling. The average class 8 truck burns 1.25 to 1.5 gph (gallons per hour) when idling. If we assume that you spend a couple hours out of the truck, for meals, etc. during the day and then just spend the required 10 hours in the sleeper with the truck idling that would be 12.5 gallons of fuel burned up every night idling. Fuel cost is currently over $4.00/gallon, but let’s use $4.00 to keep it simple for our example. That’s $50 a night if you run the truck while you’re sleeping. If you run 300 days out of the year that would be $15,000 a year for sleeping – a motel might be a better option. Not only would the cost be about the same but you’d save 3000 hours of wear and tear on your motor.
Another seldom recognized side effect of idling is its affect on your overall mpg. That number directly affects how much you pay in IFTA and road taxes as they’re calculated based on the number of gallons you theoretically consumed in the state (number of miles traveled in the state divided by your overall MPG. Here’s another little math exercise to illustrate the point. Let’s assume that your overall MPG is six and that you are on the road 300 nights out of the year. Next let’s assume that you average 120,000 miles per year. So 120,000 miles/6 mpg is 20,000 gallons of fuel burned during the year. Now if 3750 of those gallons (12.5 gallons/night * 300 nights) were deducted from that total your new MPG would be 7.38. So for calculating your fuel taxes you’d be figuring the gallons using 7.38 instead of 6 which would add up to a meaningful savings on your taxes.
The most common solution to the idling problem is the addition of an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit). Generators, which consume considerably less fuel at .3 to .5 gph are one of the standard approaches to eliminating idling. You can also track your off road fuel and get refunds for the taxes paid at the pump and eliminate it from your MPG calculations so that you still get the increased MPG advantage on your fuel taxes. The only problem with the APU (Auxiliary Power Units) is that some states are starting to pass legislation regulating and/or banning them as well as engine idling. There are units that meet the new requirements but be sure to do your homework before you invest in one of these units. They are expensive, ranging from $8000 to $15,000+, but with the cost of fuel constantly rising the recovery on your investment may only take a year or two. They also can be moved from one truck to another, so a unit could easily be transferred to your new truck when you retire the current one.
Another tip for you on idling is going to require you to break an old habit. It’s time to stop leaving the truck running 24/7. Unless it’s over 90 and it’s mid-day in the sun, there’s simply no reason to leave the truck running when you’re out of it. Just turning the truck off for the 15 minutes you spend fueling, for the 5 to 10 minutes when you’re walking in to the shipper, and all those other times when you’re out of the truck for a few minutes or an hour or two can make a big difference at the end of the year. If you just reduced your idle time by one hour a day for each of those 300 days you’d have an extra $1500 in your pocket at the end of the year (300 hours * 1.25gph * $4/gal), and that’s a conservative estimate. I’m using the minimums for my estimates. Actual idle consumption varies and your truck may be higher than the 1.25 used in this article.
Next month we’ll talk about some other alternatives to idling and discuss some of the other aspects of trip planning to help you maximize every gallon of fuel you purchase.
Till next month, be safe.
John Ewing is a former owner/operator and the author of The Truckers Helper, business management software for truckers. If you'd like to ask questions or make comments on this article please visit the forums at www.thetruckershelper.com. He will be happy to answer any questions on trucking or managing your trucking business.