is idoling bad?

I mow alot of lawns in my neighborhood (it's how i paid for my truck), and about 4-5 days a week I am going from house to house loading/unloading equipment and I usually leave my truck running anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute rather than turning it off an on 20 times a day...is it bad to leave my truck idoling, or is it better just to turn it off and on everytime?

no....it won't hurt it for that short period of time. you idle longer in a traffic jam....

letting it idle for 30 minutes or longer........that's not a good idea. excessive idling is supposed to harm the catalytic converter, and shorten it's life.

That short of time isn't a big deal. If you're going to leave it running for a while though, diesel is the way to go.

Yeah thats what I was thinking but then I heard from a friend today that if it idols for longer than 30 seconds then its better to turn it off...

Yeah thats what I was thinking but then I heard from a friend today that if it idols for longer than 30 seconds then its better to turn it off...

if that was the case..... you'd be shutting your truck off at redlights........... :biggrin:

i use my truck for work sometimes. it's left to idle 20-30 minutes at a shot in the winter. with past vehicles, (130,000 to 155,000 miles on each since new) i've never had a problem.

with newer fuel injected vehicles, it's not a big deal. with older carbed cars with cats, the cars would load up and dump raw gas into the cat, damaging it. today's newer FI cars are all but flawless......

Thanx for the info