Can i idle my diesel car for 5 hours everyday with no damage?

Question

I would like to idle my 1981 mercedes benz 300sd for about 4 to 8 hours a day. will i hurt my car somehow if i do this?

i am buring diesel to generate powers to charge my battery bank, so i have power for my power tools, it's hard to explain

Answer 1

hi

it makes no damage at all if ur car is idle for even more than 5 hours

and 2ndly u doing just for charging itsbetter u make a 1 mile round its sufficient for it to charge

Answer 2

It would be cheaper in the long run to by a portable generator.  The fuel & wear on the engine far outweigh the cost.

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Answer 3

Suprisingly this will cause more wear than running it under load, if you need to charge batteries everyday assuming you don't have mains power for any legth of time I recommend you buy a generator for the job.

Answer 4

Diesel engines shoud tick over all day if needed. They use them a lot on sites etc.

Answer 5

No damage. truckers do it every night to run the A/C or the heater. There is a cheaper way; generator or wind charger or hydroelectric. My honda generator can do 4 hrs on about 1/2 gal. If you need DC only you could build a gen using a car alternator (internally regulated, one wire) and a lawnmower engine.

Answer 6

You must have a lot of spare $$ if you can afford to let a diesel car idle for 8 hours.

Answer 7

Excessive idling will cause the pistons to glaze the bores, thus causing oil to protrude past the piston rings and cause the engine to blow smoke. The only wat to repair this would be to pull engine apart, hone the bores and replace the piston rings.