Yes, such ‘tank heaters’ were very common here in Minnesota back when I was growing up. Many people had these wired so the receptacle in the garage could be turned on from a switch inside the house, so you could turn it on while you got up and had breakfast, without having to run outside in the cold to do so. By the time you were ready to leave, the engine oil had been warmed. Or people had timers on the outlet to do this.
And outlets were often conveniently installed at the front of the parking space in the garage. Some factories or businesses had lines of outlets installed in their back parking lot – used for executives cars, or delivery trucks. This cold-weather ‘infrastructure’ is turning out to be handy now – as people convert to electric vehicles, charging outlets are already located in the appropriate spots! (Some may need to be upgraded, but still it’s a start.)
I really was not looking for this video but it came up as a suggestion and seems relevant to this question. The guy does a really good job of listing the pros/cons of diesel vs petrol.
Tl;Dw: Diesel seems to win in most cases but is more expensive overall. Also, depends what you want. Diesel is better when you need power (think truck) and petrol is better when you want speed/zippy performance (think sports car).
In the video he says diesel idles at lower speed than gasoline. Gasoline is better at higher speed.
So, if you are in a lot of city traffic with lots of red light stops or sitting in traffic congestion then diesel is better.
If you are cruising long distances at high speed then gasoline is better.
Of course, you need to compare prices for each and do the math and those prices fluctuate. IIRC there was a time in the 80’s or 90’s when diesel was really popular because it was a cheaper fuel. Then it wasn’t and the math flipped on those owners.
If I put my conspiracy-nut hat on I think the fuel companies do not want one to be “better” than the other price-wise and see to it that the prices are roughly equivalent for both. If the prices get lopsided too many may rush to one side of that equation and upset their business. Again…I have no proof. Just my crazy notions. If I am right then neither is really a “better” choice when it comes to your cost to operate unless you are an edge case.
You are basically describing a free market for a commodity. Which is exactly what petroleum products are. The things that distort prices are differential taxation and supply. The oil companies are pretty much passengers in this game. The only leverage they have is supply and that is controlled by the countries with the oil, not the oil companies themselves. This distinction is blurred for national oil companies like Petronas and Aramco, but they don’t sell at your local pump. When OPEC and Putin make a deal, supply changes, demand in the market sets the price. The relative useful energy content of the commodity will tilt the value of individual products in the production spectrum, and unsurprisingly, the market tends to settle on this valuation. The unimaginable amounts of energy and money involved mean even very small differences add up to massive savings in the margins.
For equal displacement, you’ll get more power out of a gasoline engine because you can rev it to higher RPM and make torque there.
Generally speaking, diesel is better when you need torque at low RPM. An 80,000-pound semi might be equipped with a 15-liter engine that makes a maximum of 450 horsepower; it does this by putting out 2000 lb-ft of torque at 1200 RPM, and can even put out something close to 1000 lb-ft of torque at idle speed. A 6-liter gasoline engine from a Corvette can make 450 horsepower too, but it does this by putting out 500 pound-feet of torque at 4800 RPM, and it makes hardly any torque at all down around idle RPM. If you’re trying to get your big-rig rolling from a dead stop using a 6-liter gasoline engine, that weak low-RPM torque means you’ll be slipping the clutch for a long time before you ever get rolling fast enough to achieve full clutch engagement; you’ll fry it.
Because they are worth what someone else is prepared to pay for them. They could not care what it cost you to produce. It isn’t their problem. That is the nature of commodity markets. If there is enough supply, prices may drop to where you can’t get anyone to even pay your production costs for your product. The product here is essentially portable energy. It comes in various forms, some may cost more to produce than others, but what is traded is energy.
The cost of production of oil varies dramatically across the world. Saudi can pump oil and make money at $25 a barrel. Iran needs closer to $60. Venezuela needed well north of $100. You and I paid exactly the same amount for the useful energy in the products.
Block heaters were very common for cars, but I’m not sure that they are any more. My dad would either install one in whatever car he owned or order it as an option, but I last vehicle he bought it wasn’t a possibility. I don’t have them, but I should probably check if it’s available for my cars…
He had the block heaters on a 4-hour timer, and woe betide you if you forgot to unplug the car in the morning and drove off…
We have them for all the diesel trucks and equipment at work. The crews plug them in every night all winter long.
Block heaters are still standard issue in western Canada. Modern cars do much better with extreme cold starts than in decades past, but even 5w20 oil is pretty sludgy at -36C. Which is the current temperature in Saskatoon. My car is currently plugged in. It would probably start without. It has in the past at this temperature, but the battery is getting towards the end of its life so possibly not. I’m not particularly interested in finding out.
I looked up both of our cars; there are block heaters available. Many of the references seem to be Canadian, though.
The cars use 0w20 synthetic oil, which is supposed to be pourable even down to -40. It’s only -5 here right now. That said, I’d think about even though my cars are in the garage over night.
I think that Diesel vehicles are more expensive to maintain properly than gasoline vehicles.
One thing we all need to do when sitting at a stop in a vehicle with an automatic transmission is to take it out of gear until the traffic moves. I don’t think it is very good for the transmission to sit there at an idle for long with it in “drive”.
Huh.
I had a friend, and long-time mechanic, tell me this was a bad idea . He said that taking it out & then putting it back into Drive causes more wear & tear on the transmission than just leaving it alone for the few seconds until the light changes.
It used to be that diesels needed more frequent oil and filter changes (3000 miles was typical) but improvements in machine tolerances and microfilters have extended that considerably.
Leaving the transmission in drive while idling causes wear on the drive bands and clutches, it can also overheat the oil. Cars with stop/start don’t have the problem
Doesn’t hurt it at all. When idling in “D” at a dead stop, there are certain clutches and brake bands in a conventional automatic transmission that are fully disengaged (and so subject to negligible wear) and others that are fully engaged (and so not wearing at all). All the slip between the rotating engine flywheel and the non-rotating transmission input shaft is taken up hydraulically in the torque converter; there’s no friction-based clutch that’s wearing out under this circumstance.
If the transmission is in neutral or park, then there are additional clutches and/or brake bands in the transmission that are fully disengaged (and so subject to negligible wear). However, the act of shifting from neutral or park into “D” will engage those clutches and brake bands, and that initial engagement will cause brief slipping while under load, which is what causes wear of that friction material. In other words, shifting in/out of “D” is worse for your transmission than leaving it in “D”.
Best practice for max automatic transmission life is to minimize shifting. That includes shifting between P/N and D. Stopped in traffic? Just leave it in D. Having said that, the amount of wear from taking it in/out of D is not huge, so if there’s any decent reason to put it in park, go ahead and do so; hyperoptimization is a great way to thoroughly annoy your friends and family.
Dual-clutch transmissions and automated manual transmissions are different from conventional automatics: being stopped while in “D” is no different from being in neutral or park, so taking one of these transmissions “out of gear” while stopped in traffic doesn’t make a difference to transmission life.
Sounds like you’d be a good person to ask the following additional question:
When a manual transmission car is stopped for a short time period with the engine running, is it better to put it in neutral and let the clutch out, or put it in gear with the clutch in, or something else?
I’ve always figured having the clutch in on a running engine is wearing the throwout bearing, and vaguely think throwout bearings are somewhat stressed gadgets. That is, crankshaft bearings or wheel bearings happily spin under loads for 100,000 miles and more, but throwout bearings should do orders of magnitude less time spinning under load. So when I come to a stop at a red light, or at a stop sign when I have to wait for traffic, I shift to neutral and let the clutch out. If I have to come to a full stop but there’s no minimum time, for example coming to a stop sign with nobody else around, I’ll keep the clutch in (and of course would be changing gears then anyway).
For a manual gearbox, if it’s in gear with the clutch pedal on the floor, then yes, the throwout bearing is spinning under the load of the clutch spring, and the clutch is slipping (albeit with negligible torque transmission). From a durability-only point of view, yes, it seems better to take the gearbox out of gear and let the clutch out; as you’ve noted, the bearings on the various shafts inside the gearbox are designed to tolerate heavy loads for the life of the car, so spinning under no load is a breeze for them. This is also easier on your clutch foot (or clutch hand, if you’re riding a motorcycle).
From a safety point of view, when stopped in traffic it seems better to keep the gearbox in gear with the clutch disengaged so you can quickly move if the need arises, and simply accept that small additional wear on the clutch and throwout bearing as the (tiny) cost of an enhanced margin of safety. A reasonable compromise is to wait until you’ve got one or two vehicles stopped behind you before taking it out of gear and letting the clutch out; this is the standard advice for motorcyclists, who are very vulnerable to rear-end collisions in traffic.
Ah – wow! Excellent advice! Taking into account the barrier properties of vehicles behind!
This reminds me of advice somebody gave me to keep the front wheels straight when stopped in a left turn lane waiting for traffic to clear. The idea was that, if you turn your front wheels in preparation for turning, and you get hit from behind, your front wheels throw you into oncoming traffic rather than straight ahead.
I’d never thought of either of these things, but once they make sense I have them forever. Thanks!
I KNOW I have never seen a gas station where diesel was not available, right alongside gas. Realizing things are very different in the US is an eye opener to this European.
If there is no engagement between the engine and drive shaft how does a car creep forward when in idle? Presumably something is pushing on something while at a stop light.
