You open the door to your truck just like any other day and expect it to work exactly how it has for a while. You turn the key, and something doesn’t feel right. You can tell almost immediately when the engine kicks on that the feel of your truck is completely off, even though everything seems to be working as intended. You drive to the first stop light on your route and stop at the red light, which is where it hits you. That truck you love is bouncing all over the place or is making way more noise than usual.
Depending on what you use your truck for, you can end up spending a lot of time idling. As much as we want the driving experience of our trucks to be as smooth as possible, we can sometimes overlook that we also spend a lot of time idling with the engine on, even if it’s just at traffic lights.
A hard idle can make being in your vehicle much less enjoyable for everyone inside of it. Most of the time, there is an easily fixable reason for why your truck isn’t idling the way it should. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to prevent hard idling and how to deal with it when you start to notice that something is off about your truck.
When we talk about idling, we’re specifically talking about any time that your vehicle’s engine is running without actually moving. Any time your engine is on while you’re in park or you just have the brakes fully engaged, you’re idling. Idling engines don’t fully stop working, but your revolutions will be much lower than when you’re actually moving.
An engine that has a smooth idle can power all the major systems of your truck without needing to be in motion, such as your electrical components, your air conditioning, and other basic systems. You can achieve a very smooth idling sensation when your engine’s air-to-fuel ratio is just right.
On the other hand, rough idling is a very unpleasant experience that can have several causes. Usually, you’ll get a much rougher idle when the air-to-fuel ratio of your engine isn’t perfect. The thing to keep in mind is that there are plenty of reasons why this ratio might get thrown off from equilibrium. The trick to fixing a rough idle is determining which issue your vehicle has and tackling it quickly.
If you trust yourself to work on your own vehicle, many of these issues won’t give you too much trouble if you want to deal with them on your own. For diesel truck owners that aren’t as well-versed with the inner workings of these machines, you’re better off taking your truck to a professional mechanic who has the right tools to fix these issues.
If we want to know how to prevent hard idling, we first need to understand what can go wrong inside of our vehicles that causes that rough idle in the first place. The majority of problems that might cause your idle to be rougher will be inside of your engine, since air-to-fuel ratios are normally the culprit, and there are plenty of ways for that ratio to be thrown off.
We’ll look into a few of the more likely reasons your vehicle isn’t idling well and learn how you can fix the problem so you can go back to enjoying your truck’s feel again.
The source of your rough idling could be in your air intake system rather than the engine. Specifically, if you haven’t changed or cleaned your air filters in a while, this can easily cause your idle to become much worse. A clogged air filter means that you aren’t getting as much air into your engine as it probably needs to function correctly.
The fix here is easy. Depending on the type of air filter you have, you can simply wash the filter out and replace it after oiling it again, or you can replace it with a new filter if you have a more basic one. This should help bring your air-to-fuel ratio back in line, smoothing out your idle in the process.
High-pressure fuel injectors are built to last, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect or never require some maintenance to make sure they’re working optimally. The tiny nozzles that spray fuel into your engine can get clogged over time from the carbon that your engine produces as a byproduct.
Your options here are to remove the injectors and clean them manually, or you can use a fuel additive to help clean your injectors from the inside. Preventing this issue is rather easy, as long as you use higher-quality diesel for your fuel whenever you can.
A Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) valve isn’t present in every diesel engine on the road, but many of them do have one. The PCV valve’s major function is to reduce toxic emissions, and it’s a very crucial part of most engines.
Much like your fuel injectors, the PCV valve can get clogged with grime and dirt over time, which can prevent it from functioning regularly. When your PCV valve isn’t working, your air-to-fuel ratio can start to run a little lean, which in turn causes your truck to have a rougher idle. Cleaning this valve on a regular basis makes this problem easy to avoid.
We’ve mentioned a few times how an air-to-fuel ratio that isn’t balanced will cause a much rougher idle in your vehicle. The root cause of this imbalance can sometimes be as simple as a faulty oxygen sensor.
Your oxygen sensor makes sure that this ratio stays balanced, but it isn’t immune to damage from your engine’s high-temperature environment. A worn-out oxygen sensor can easily make your truck have a rougher idle, so make sure you take time to inspect it and replace it when necessary.
Norcal Diesel Performance wants you to always enjoy your time driving, whether you’re moving or not. For part replacements or new upgrades, such as our Duramax exhaust parts, Norcal Diesel Performance has your back in ensuring that you can fully appreciate what your truck can do for you.
You must login to post comments.