Talk to me about diesel engine cool down.

1,633 Views | 8 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by trueaggie2782
trueaggie2782
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AG
I've seen someone saying that they will let their diesel cool down at idle for a few minutes after a long drive. Is this a thing?
akaggie05
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AG
Yes, main thing is to let the turbo(s) cool down a bit, especially after high speed driving. If I pull off the highway to stop I usually let it idle for a minute or so before shutting down. Probably just cheap insurance.
Jason_Roofer
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It's a thing but generally speaking no one drives 80mph and then whips into their drive and turns it off.

If you cruise through a neighborhood or your street or even check your mail idling, that's plenty. In other words, it's not a necessary thing to be mindful of outside of driving like normal.
CanyonAg77
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AG
We always did this with our tubo diesel tractors. The idea was that a hot shutdown would lead to oil being baked onto the bearings in the turbo impeller shaft (have heard it called 'coking") Over time, this would allegedly lead to quicker failure of the bearings in the turbo
Bronco6Gen
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This is definitely a thing if hauling a trailer or hauling ass. I learned this the hard way about 15 years, was hauling a cargo trailer from Texas to Florida for a tradeshow and was driving 80+ pretty much the whole way. Drove a full tank several hours non-stop, pulled into to get fuel and shut off the engine, gas fuel started it and tried to drive, it immediately went into limp mode. At the time I thought I had gotten bad diesel, but I watched several other people fill up and drive away with no problem. After 30 minutes I decided to call a tow truck to take me to the nearest dealer. An hour into the wait for the tow truck I decided to disconnect the battery cables and reconnect them and give it another shot, and it started up right away and drove fine. Pulled the codes when I got to Florida and settled, I don't remember the specific code, but it was an odd code, something about the turbo over speeding. After digging into it I essentially learned that if your ride the turbo hard you need to let it idle cool. I still have the truck, and after figuring that out have never had an issue again.
MouthBQ98
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AG
Your oil cools your turbos so you want to keep your oil at operating temp. Probably back when diesel turbos were relatively newer and when oil wasn't as good in quality and turbo and engine cooling designs weren't as good, you'd get issues with turbos running hot and deteriorating the oil or getting inadequate lubrication.

I'm going to guess that now they design the turbos to remain cooled sufficiently at operating temperature as the oil should not get much hotter than the rest of the engine as it moves through the turbo or it would be breaking down all the time in regular operation. As soon as your engine stops, your hot exhaust stop and cooling starts. It literally can't get hotter than it already is at that moment in the turbos, and it should be design Ed to have remained cool enough at operating temp.

But, I suppose if you have a poor design that can get too hot and suddenly stop cooling oil circulation by turning off the engine while the turbo has been spun up, the heat might spike briefly and deteriorate the oil left in the turbo.
StockHorseAg
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AG
You can actually get a thing called a Turbo Timer for this specific problem in older vehicles. You see them mainly in old JDM cars.

In the Ford 6.0 manuals, it actually said to let your pickup cool down by idling if you had worked the turbos hard. When I'd haul horses out to California from North Texas in our 6.0 growing up, I would turn the pickup on in Texas, and not turn it off till California mainly for that reason.

On my 6.7, I always make sure to let it cool down before I shut it off if I've been working it hard just to be nice to it.
erudite
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MouthBQ98 said:

Your oil cools your turbos so you want to keep your oil at operating temp. Probably back when diesel turbos were relatively newer and when oil wasn't as good in quality and turbo and engine cooling designs weren't as good, you'd get issues with turbos running hot and deteriorating the oil or getting inadequate lubrication.

I'm going to guess that now they design the turbos to remain cooled sufficiently at operating temperature as the oil should not get much hotter than the rest of the engine as it moves through the turbo or it would be breaking down all the time in regular operation. As soon as your engine stops, your hot exhaust stop and cooling starts. It literally can't get hotter than it already is at that moment in the turbos, and it should be design Ed to have remained cool enough at operating temp.

But, I suppose if you have a poor design that can get too hot and suddenly stop cooling oil circulation by turning off the engine while the turbo has been spun up, the heat might spike briefly and deteriorate the oil left in the turbo.
Supposedly it is a really big issue with Variable geometry turbos. I think the current workaround is to use radiator coolant as a heat sink to disspate heat around the turbo after shutoff, at least for gas vehicles.
trueaggie2782
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AG
Appreciate all of the good information here. Would never have thought to do that since I've only owned gas engines. Will definitely be making this a habit once my diesel arrives.
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