Looking at Diesel Pusher. Tell Me Why Not

Sure is purty, looking forward to your user evaluations Scotty. Good luck with "event"

dave10a said:

The primary reason diesels and gas engines and transmissions don't like to be idle, is because of condensation causes metal corrosion, dry starting cause accelerated wear, oil seals oxidize and get brittle and the fuel goes stale-- especially alcohol mixed fuels. Caterpillar recommended to drive at least once a month to keep the engine and transmission lubed. Tires are another issue and should be stored and covered properly. Also diesel engines should not run at idle speeds for more than 3 minutes-- according to Ford and Caterpillar. Cat claims the oil will become contaminated with diesel fuel from "slobbering" while Ford is silent for their reason.

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"Diesel engines should not idle for more than 3 minutes".... Diesel engines will idle all day....they don't even warm up on cold days within 3 minutes and you never want to drive on a cold diesel engine. Not sure where you got this info, but Cummins has no problem....big truckers idle all night in their rigs...Big Cat engines run at idle all the time....

Thats a beautiful rig. Please don't be a stranger here.

jayc said:

Thats a beautiful rig. Please don't be a stranger here.

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No way. This is my RV birth place. Thanks to everyone for the complements and well wishes.

It's not parked under the garage yet, but the oil samples that I took a week ago, all came back good. If nothing else blows up, it appears we have a deal. The Samsung arrived at the dealer today. The new Michellins will be mounted tomorrow. Thanks to this forum, the Cyclone started off with new Michellins, so the DP might as well too. I'm sure that I am paying for them but officially the dealer is throwing them in.

Good luck with your DP-it looks like new!!

Sounds like a nice change....enjoy.
The reason to not idle was explained to me by a mechanic years ago who worked at a ford dealership and saw first hand why.
I was told that diesel engines are high compression and as a result if they are left idling at low factory set rpm they will start to carbon up.
They then suffer from blow by past the rings and the oil becomes heavily contaminated with carbon and leads to premature wear.
He commented when you go to any truck stop......every rig at idle is bumped up to 1100-1300 rpm , never at the 6-800 rpm low idle for that reason.
Another thing he mentioned was everyone that bought a diesel truck was encouraged to install a hand throttle if they were going to idle the trucks for long periods and those that did got double or better the miles than those that did not.
Just food for thought lol

Nice, we have several friends who have Newmar coaches and love them. Our first RV was a MH, loved it. Over 70k trouble free miles. The ease of traveling, and the setup made it the vehicle of choice for us while we were still working. After retiring, we tend to stay for longer periods in one spot, which made the advantage of the MH less important. We feel like the 5th wheel gives us more "livable" space, because even with the DP that 6' or so at the front isn't the best use of space when you're parked. Having done both, I would have to agree with one of the previous comments, on the quality of a MH vs trailer.

Since I have not owned a large RV, I am no help on actual experience, but I was around heavy mining equipment for 36 years. Anytime something is bigger and more robust, so is the $$ to keep it moving. IF money was no object, I would personally go with a DP MH, or possibly a Freightliner 'mini semi' as SilverRhino did in the above post. I also like the Dynamax luxury class C. As I stated in the beginning, diesel pushers would be expensive to maintain, but again, if I went that route I think I would try to have a maint. budget set up in the beginning with a hefty balance to keep any repairs/parts replacement from ruining the fun the MH provides. Just my 2cents.......good luck.