hour timer vs odometer?

[spikerS]

I have always had this thing in the back of my head that really, and ODO is pretty inaccurate.

Take my dad's old car. he would let it idle for hours at a time. Now, none of this would show on an ODO, but would show on a hour meter, thus giving a more accurate representation of the usage.

Thoughts on this? Would this be something that manufacturers should start installing on vehicles along with ODOs?

Pros? Cons?

discuss!

[JfuckinC]

My truck already has one... 2009 Dodge Ram.

Yours is pretty new, it's not buried in the info on the dash somewhere?

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Originally posted by spikers
I have always had this thing in the back of my head that really, and ODO is pretty inaccurate.

Take my dad's old car. he would let it idle for hours at a time. Now, none of this would show on an ODO, but would show on a hour meter, thus giving a more accurate representation of the usage.

Thoughts on this? Would this be something that manufacturers should start installing on vehicles along with ODOs?

Pros? Cons?

discuss!

Some vehicles already come with them, I know a lot of the GM trucks do.

[AE92_TreunoSC]

Idling really only takes a toll on the catalyst in gasoline engines. I'm sure car starters are responsible for premature catalytic converter failures in a lot of cars.

I think odo's are all we need. The worst wear is from stand alone acceleration, load, and cornering.

The bearings are practically floating at idle,without load. I see no real issue.

I would like a black box that tells you how the driver treated it though lol, similar to how GTR's can give a technician feedback on how the car has been driven.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by JfuckinC
My truck already has one... 2009 Dodge Ram.

Yours is pretty new, it's not buried in the info on the dash somewhere?

My truck has one, but i have to manually start and stop it, and can reset it at any time.

I am talking about one that can tell you how much time an engine has been running over it's lifetime and can't be tampered with, much like an ODO.

[Tik-Tok]

Would be nice to see, but doubt it would become mandatory.

Our work truck idles for pretty much 12 hours a day during the winter, and 6 in the summer, for the past 6 years, yet only has 100k kms on it, lol

[Rat Fink]

.

[Traffic_Cop]

Our police cars count in hours

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Traffic_Cop
Our police cars count in hours

Make sense as emergency vehicles are not allowed to shut off. See them idling at Timmy's all the time.

[corsvette]

Hour meters tell the story. I'd rather have a vehicle with 200,000Kms highway with ~4000 hours than a 100,000 kms city driving with similar hours. I deal in heavy trucks and all of them come with hour meters and they usually tell a better story than the odometer.

Example- The average City of Calgary sanding/gravel/garbage truck will retire with 100-150,000 kms, however, some have 20,000 plus hours and are really wore out. A class 8 highway tractor will have average of 25,000 hours by 1 million Kms. So really the city truck has 1 million KM worth of running and wear and tear but if you shop only by the Kms it will seem like a nice low mileage unit.

[Graham_A_M]

Most trucks have both. Our '09 Silverado 2500HD (gas) has one, so I know exactly how long the engine was running & the KM's obviously. Its a great feature to have. Both should be a necessity on trucks. Cars? not so much.

Keep in mind though, whenever the ignition is on, the hour meter is counting. So it may be a bit off at times when you're just listening to the radio with the engine off or whatever. Although thats minor.

[Nufy]

My truck has an engine hours timer.

2011 Ram 1500 Sport.

[sr20s14zenki]

Our 3500HD GMC has one built in. Im actually pretty impressed with the way they tie everything into the information panel on that truck. When we bought it, the hours jived with the amount of km on the truck, so it was good. Had 197,000 km on it, and the hours were 4100 hours i think or something. A friend's dad went to look at a duramax, same year, and it had 150,000k on it, nice truck. Turned out it had 10,000 hours on the meter!!!!:eek: That one was an idler for sure. Avoided it, got another.

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by AE92_TreunoSC
The worst wear is from stand alone acceleration, load, and cornering..

You mean besides startup, which is the worst hands down, right? ;)

[Boosted131]

Out of all mine only my renegade has one. It's most important on a quad because some people average like 5km\h and that usually means it was just used for mud bogging.

[sidewaysD]

I think with OBD2 now a days..

The techs/dealers, can pull hours off the ECU.

[Zero102]

When I had a car with an hour meter I always changed the oil by hours, not by km. Usually about 130 hours per oil change, sometimes 150. Mileage might be a good way to judge wear on a lot of other car parts but engines and interiors seem to be better represented by number of hours vs number of km.

Rat fink - 50km per engine hour is pretty high for an excessive idling threshold don't you think?... Driving around town I seem to average about 32-34km per engine hour and I basically never idle the engine - always turning it off if I'm sitting more than a minute or so, though I do spend some time sitting in heavy traffic and don't drive that car on highways a lot.

[SKR]

Originally posted by Zero102
Rat fink - 50km per engine hour is pretty high for an excessive idling threshold don't you think?... Driving around town I seem to average about 32-34km per engine hour and I basically never idle the engine - always turning it off if I'm sitting more than a minute or so, though I do spend some time sitting in heavy traffic and don't drive that car on highways a lot.

Probably not for the work trucks he's talking about. They probably spend most of their time either on the highway or idling on site. Right now the work truck I've been sitting in is averaging 55.1km/hr, and I shut it off a lot.

It would be interesting (actually no it probably wouldn't be to anyone) to see what my personal truck averages that spends a lot of time in town, and not much time at all idling. I should be home in a couple days to check that for everyone.

[THE GOVERNATOR]

Originally posted by spikers
I have always had this thing in the back of my head that really, and ODO is pretty inaccurate.

Take my dad's old car. he would let it idle for hours at a time. Now, none of this would show on an ODO, but would show on a hour meter, thus giving a more accurate representation of the usage.

Thoughts on this? Would this be something that manufacturers should start installing on vehicles along with ODOs?

Pros? Cons?

discuss!

A combination of both when said vehicle is new, or when a engine is rebuilt.

For example.. My service truck is a 95 F250 2WD Dual tank's Long Box. With a In engine Compressor. has 154,782km's and 39,782 Hrs On the timer.

[ddduke]

I think it's really important, a few years ago we had a really cold winter in Red Earth so we kept our cars running 24/7. My record was 45 days without turning it off once, that includes sleeping, fueling up, etc. This was a diesel motor btw.

[asp integra]

i didnt know vehicles had this. the only time i would see hour timers is in boats

[Alak]

My Super Duty has one, but you can reset it. Our new 11-13's display it on the lariat computer screen, but it doesnt show up on the basic models.

[Rat Fink]

.

[Supa Dexta]

Yeah my chev has one,, I did the math a while back and it avg'd 70+km/h for every hour its been on, 3000+ hours... And it idles a lot too.. :rofl:

[Nufy]

Originally posted by Supa Dexta
Yeah my chev has one,, I did the math a while back and it avg'd 70+km/h for every hour its been on, 3000+ hours... And it idles a lot too.. :rofl:

36.7 km / hour for me...

856 on the engine hours counter. 31459 on the odo...

Not bad for a 2011. (I don't get out much... lol)