Educating Fleet Drivers on Winter Idling
10 Dec 2019With the wide proliferation of automatic starters for cars and trucks, many Americans are convinced that it is good for your car to warm the engine before driving in winter. The truth is the opposite. While once upon a time, before fuel-injected engines, this was the way to go. The older carburetors required idling time to warm up so the car would run smoothly. Modern fuel injection ended the need for this practice back in the 1980s and 1990s.
Is Idling Bad for Your Car?
The sad reality is that idling in winter may make your car’s interior more comfortable and allow you to defrost your windows before setting off, but it isn’t exactly good for your car, your wallet, or the planet. Here’s what you need to know about idling in winter.
- Idling wastes fuel driving up fuel costs for your fleet.
- Idling increases emissions, making the air around you more difficult to breathe according to how many people are idling their vehicles.
- Idling strips oils from cylinders and pistons which are essential to keeping your engine running.
- Idling doesn’t warm up your engine. In fact, the best way to get a modern engine warmed up and ready to go is by driving it.
It’s hard to go against the grain. Especially when false information has been passed down from parent to child for several decades at this point. However, educating your drivers on winter idling can be instrumental in preventing unnecessary wear and tear on your fleet vehicles, saving fuel costs, reducing some maintenance needs, and extending the life of your fleet vehicles.
Educating Drivers about Idling
The first step in changing the way your drivers behave when it comes to winter idling is to educate them about the harm it creates. The second thing you need to do is to establish policies that discourage drivers from idling. Make these policies year-round policies for the greatest possible effect on your vehicles and your fuel costs.
However, implementation without a way of measuring and monitoring compliance is useless. Fleet management software or a GPS fleet tracking system for your fleet can send you alerts anytime drivers idle for longer than one minute – allowing you to enforce the policies you’ve put into place much more effectively.
Winter idling can be devastating to your vehicles and your budget this winter. Nix the practice today with GPS fleet tracking and management for all your fleet vehicles.
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