Long Idle Times?

So I'm working 2 jobs now and sometimes I have a 2 hour window between them to eat and catch a nap. Am I doing any harm to my 4.0 to let it idle with the AC blowing for like and hour and a half?

 

No, but you might want to change your oil more often.

 

excessive idling is bad for any engine. almost any owners manual will say so, even idling to " warm" the engine is usually warned against and preferred method is to drive slowly to warm the engine. Plus you have the whole carbon monoxide poisoning risk sitting in an idling vehicle

 

Ive heard it both ways. I've idled for hours during power outages without any trouble. It would be nice if someone could point to an article discussing this with some actual stats to back it up either way

 

Yes. You do run the chance of shortening the life of your air-conditioner. The air-condition is not set up to handle long idles and low airflow across the condenser thus you are running higher head pressures and lessening the longevity of the unit. They put different refrigerant in a vehicle then they do a stationary unit and the refrigerant in a vehicle has a different boiling point and does not cool the same and not suited for long idles.

 

Good point, i was only thinking about the engine, but the a/c is probably the more worrisome component

 

your gas bill will hate you.

Took my truck to the dealer and they idled the truck for some time (maybe an hour or so) while they worked on it (checking the AC and master cylinder)..... typical mpg is around 17.5 ... that tank was 15.8mpg.