[srini4344]

We often check the ODO meter for estimating car life. In my view that is not the right method to know the engine life, Most of the time there are scenarios where cars are at the idle condition for hours.

Why not OEM's attach the idle meters in the car to examine the exact engine life.

PS: I'm not aware of this setup is there anywhere in the globe. Please light some knowledge on the same.


Srini

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by srini4344

We often check the ODO meter for estimating car life. In my view that is not the right method to know the engine life, Most of the time there are scenarios where cars are at the idle condition for hours.

Why not OEM's attach the idle meters in the car to examine the exact engine life.

You are correct, number of kilometers driven is an approximation to engine life, but then again so is counting the minutes/hours of idle time.

But overal it is a pretty good indication and car manufacturers have managed to come up with good values, that in practice appear to be working fine.

There are other ways to keep track of engine usage, but I don’t think they are used for regular cars. In the propellor planes I fly we have so called Hobbs meters. It measures the cumulative engine hours time. Engine maintenance is based upon engine hours. (And for planes engine maintenance interval are legal requirements too!) .



Anorak fact: my pilot log bok hours are derived from Hobbs times as well. So my recorded pilot flight time is from engine start to engine stop.

In the merchant navy as well as with any major stationary engine, engine hours tend to be recorded. On jet engine the same although usually other parameters are recorded and might be factored in. The number of cold starts on turbines is sometimes used on top, or rather in conjunction with running hours.

Whether you measure distance or running time, in both cases you end up with a proximation when it comes to engine wear and thus life.

Engine life is very complex to measure directly. It is a combination on many factors.

On large (marine and stationary) engines they might be taking regular oil samples that can analysed in a laboratory. The sort of particles and amount of particles can be correlated to engine wear and even to what specific components are wearing down.

Its fine for big diesel onboard of a ship, or a power gen set ashore. In the USA you can get it done quite cheaply for your car’s oil. But still changing the oil is cheaper. When we lived in the USA I tried it, just for fun. I have been sending oil samples to labs and studying lab results for many years as a (chief) engineer onboard ships too.

Still, maintenance onboard ships is dictated first and foremost by running hours! Sometimes when using heavy fuel instead of regular diesel (gasoil) the intervals get adjusted.

There are also some measuring techniques that might give an indication of problems/excessive wear and tear. Vibration is one of the most common. On turbines in shore and aviation applications you will have vibration meters/alarms. But in all honesty those are more alarms when things are about to break, not so much an indication of when regular maintenance is required.

But vibration and sound technology can be used to monitor wear and tear of for instance bearings to a very large degree of precision too. You might come across it, again on marine application on very large diesels.

Even of cars we might see a service indicator and or oil change indicator. None of these measure the quality of the oil directly. But they do have a simple algorithm that looks at the number of cold starts (absolutely the worse) and driving conditions and driving time and calculates a service interval time.

On steam engines and some early diesel you might find revolution counters. So a device that counts, cumulative the number of turns an engine has done. On my first ship we had one of these too. Not sure if they are still in use. We have several marine engineers on the forum, maybe they can provide more up to date insights in what is being used these days to monitor engine wear?



But here is the thing; what is the problem that needs solving? Engine maintenance on the basis of mileage has proven to be a vey simple and pretty robust mechanism. We also know under what conditions you might want to consider changing the interval. (e.g. city vv motorway driving, idle time, dust etc). It’s not exact, but it is dead cheap and has proven to provide excellent results!

Jeroen

[tharian]

Originally Posted by srini4344

We often check the ODO meter for estimating car life. In my view that is not the right method to know the engine life, Most of the time there are scenarios where cars are at the idle condition for hours.

Why not OEM's attach the idle meters in the car to examine the exact engine life.

PS: I'm not aware of this setup is there anywhere in the globe. Please light some knowledge on the same.


Srini

If you have a standalone GPS unit, there should be a screen that shows moving time and not-moving time . It does on my Garmin GPS and of course, kms covered. But how to convert idle time to engine life, I am not sure.

In this case, the GPS needs to be turned on everytime the car is used, for it to log.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by tharian

If you have a standalone GPS unit, there should be a screen that shows moving time and not-moving time . It does on my Garmin GPS and of course, kms covered. But how to convert idle time to engine life, I am not sure..

Correct, we have no data how to correlate idle time to engine life or maintenance.

Also, it is good to understand what causes the most engine wear. It is not idling per see. It is the time between starting the engine and the engine oil coming up to normal temperature. So that is why you should not idle your engine to warm it up. You should start and drive off straight away, just don’t strain or rev the engine the first 10 minutes.

Number of starts is probably a better indicator than idle time. Its why cars that get driven a lot in cities, short drives tend to have some more wear than cars that get driven for longer distances/times.

Jeroen

[AutoNoob]

this reminds me of my childhood days, on jeeps and tractors

[RadixLecti]

On steam engines and some early diesel you might find revolution counters. So a device that counts, cumulative the number of turns an engine has done. On my first ship we had one of these too. Not sure if they are still in use. We have several marine engineers on the forum, maybe they can provide more up to date insights in what is being used these days to monitor engine wear?

To digress from OP's original question briefly: On all ships I have sailed on we still have revolution counters (for the main engines), but they are used in the daily performance report, rather than for maintenance intervals.

Main engine maintenance is, as usual, based on running hours and/or condition monitoring for all wear parts. In the company I sail for we use a nice little program called Engine Component Tracker, in which every piston, liner, injector, exhaust valve, bearing shell, etc etc etc is entered with its serial number, so running hours of individual components can be monitored with ease - IF the second engineer keeps it up to date.

Inductive sensors are used to monitor cumulative (main+crankpin+crosshead) bearing wear on each cylinder.

On the current electronically controlled main engines, inductive sensors on individual exhaust valves can give early warning of trouble if the stroke length falls below a minimum value.

Having said all that, my recent experience with ultra-long stroke engines and their high max pressures is that regular visual inspection is still key, and piston rings and/or liners need to be changed when (more often than if) they scuff or break, rather than when they wear out!

[Bibendum90949]

What a coincidence this thread is. I was just thinking exactly this point couple of days back when I had a quick look at the data of my car. I'm talking about the UVO app of Seltos that logs pretty good amount of data.

Seeing the idle time data, the first thought that crossed my mind is do I need to carry out the scheduled service much earlier than the stipulated 10000 km or 1 year, may be I need to service it every 7500-8500 kms or so since idle time is much much more than I anticipated. This data was an eye opener since I never had these kind of logs in my other car. I'm sharing the data of my car for the months(pre-covid times) it had clocked considerable distance under it's belt. The idle time % are 25%, 33% and 27% respectively for the months shown. This indeed had surpassed all my ball park calculations.








My car logs a lot of idle time majorly in the following ways.

* Power naps taken on long journeys(can be as low as 40 mins to 90 mins or even more)
* When we're to visit a shop/bank etc but we've to leave behind the occupants in the car. Just recently had to idle for an hour as my mom had to wait in car while I was inside a bank. If not for the pandemic, she may well have accompanied me to the bank.
* Traffic signals and snarls(common occurrence).
* Numerous other occassions where we've no choice than to idle with no shade around or no parking spots in the vicinity(say waiting for someone)

Few questions to the fellow bhpians

* When a manufacturer recommends 10000 km interval for scheduled service, do they really factor in the idle time that the car gets subjected to. Idle time varies a great deal from car to car. Like Jeroen mentioned in the post above for airplanes, don't the car also should get serviced based on engine hours than the distance it clocked.

* I guess a car that idles a lot should go in for service little earlier than the scheduled interval. Don't the car manufacturers need to mention service interval as 10000kms/12 months/ xx:xx hours whichever is earlier instead of just the distance clocked or the duration in terms of months.?

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by Bibendum90949

I guess a car that idles a lot should go in for service little earlier than the scheduled interval. Don't the car manufacturers need to mention service interval as 10000kms/12 months/ xx:xx hours whichever is earlier instead of just the distance clocked or the duration in terms of months.?

I see # of hours being a metric of usage in commercial i.e. non domestic environments for e.g. in gen-set diesel engines.

Please don't judge manufacturer's service intervals by what you read on TBHP. We TBHPians are NOT normal run-of-the-mill car owners.

A very large majority of car owners are not technically inclined. They just want their vehicle to work..like a washing machine or any other domestic appliance, day in and day out with preferably zero or minimal fuss. When it gives up or a newer more interesting model is announced, the old one will be replaced.

[Bibendum90949]

Originally Posted by R2D2

Please don't judge manufacturer's service intervals by what you read on TBHP. We TBHPians are NOT normal run-of-the-mill car owners.

Guess manufacturers are always forced to strike a balance between service cost and car's health. Service intervals spaced close to each other can be detrimental in people forming perception of a brand's service cost. It's always a bit of tight rope they walk.

I always take my cars for service little early than recommended For instance my Seltos had gone in for 1st oil change at 6.5 k, followed by 2 nd at 13.5 k and next one I plan to do before it hits 21k. It's always the km threshold that comes in earlier for me than the months.

Originally Posted by R2D2

A very large majority of car owners are not technically inclined. They just want their vehicle to work..like a washing machine or any other domestic appliance, day in and day out with preferably zero or minimal fuss. When it gives up or a newer more interesting model is announced, the old one will be replaced.

You've really hit the nail on it's head here !

[WhiteSierra]

Not just aircrafts and ships, heavy vehicles like JCBs, Kubotas skidsteer, excavators, Forklifts, tractors have these hour meters which determine the number of hours the engine is actually turned on. With more modern vehicles using ECUs and ECMs unlike analog meters in the past, storing data on the car's system is relatively easy and the good thing is, one need not need to have an OBD connector to seek this data, modern day connected cars are providing all the information the in app itself. Nice to see Kia seltos providing this information on UVO app.

Generally cop cars idle a lot and the number on the ODO of those cars don't do justice at all, same goes with personal vehicles too, my cousin takes his office calls for hours together while idling with AC on, my drivers used to use aircon with engine idling for hours when no one is around, we could determine it only by looking at all the ac water on the floor where the car is parked and idled for hours.

[GTO]

These will be of academic interest at best. Today's engines are built so well that - as long as the manufacturer's maintenance schedules are adhered to - the owner will have sold his car long before it sees any major engine issues. Most people change cars at the 5 year mark (max 75000 km), some go on till 1 lakh km, and only enthusiasts / value seekers / commercial operators own vehicles beyond 2 lakh km. Even there, well-timed oil changes & maintenance will ensure an engine life of well beyond 200,000 km.

Of course, there are other & better ways to gauge the engine's health (e.g. compression test) if you so wish.

[srini1785]

I don't think that such hair splitting detail is needed. That said, in this age of over dump of statistics, its only a matter of time before someone fixes such a meter ( or is it already there?) on the dash and we start debating on the ideal Idle : run ratio or something like that.

Just to give you an example : There were days when we played cricket for fun. Now a days there are statistician who analyze every ball and mine data. Is it necessary?.

Don't worry just drive and be happy.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by srini1785

I don't think that such hair splitting detail is needed. That said, in this age of over dump of statistics, its only a matter of time before someone fixes such a meter ( or is it already there?)t.

As I mentioned earlier: many modern cars come with dynamic service interval indication. I don’t think they actually measure anything in the oil. But they do look at mileage done, speeds, rpm, number of cold starts. The. They run a clever algorithm that tells you your engine needs a service.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by RadixLecti

Inductive sensors are used to monitor cumulative (main+crankpin+crosshead) bearing wear on each cylinder.

On the current electronically controlled main engines, inductive sensors on individual exhaust valves can give early warning of trouble if the stroke length falls below a minimum value.

Thanks, do you have more information on these sensors. I would like to understand how they actually measure wear (or length).

Thanks
Jeroen

[RadixLecti]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I would like to understand how they actually measure wear (or length).

They are are inductive distance sensors, mounted just below the bottom of the crosshead guide and above the main bearing cap as shown. At BDC, they produce a signal proportional to distance d.

d of course becomes smaller as the three bearings wear down, so we get a reading of cumulative bearing wear for that particular unit.