How much gas per hour does a fuel injected, late model vehicle use when idling and running the air conditioner? I have a Dodge minivan with a 3.3 liter engine.
How's the wear and tear?
I checked the archives, and it was pretty empty.
Any other ideas for keeping the van cool while sleeping in it during the summer?
Thanks
Many people die from sleeping in car with engine running. It sucks in a lot of carbon monoxide....
It is not a good idea to sleep in a car that is not moving with the engine running. Carbon monoxide could get in the cabin and it could end up being your last nap.
----------------- Alex __O _-\
Relatively little fuel, but I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how many gallons per hour.
Horrible. Gasoline engines hate to idle, especially with a load like the A/C. Diesels don't mind at all because they're still moving a lot of air at idle through the engine (no throttle), but gasoline engines move very little air and therefore the combustion dynamics are very bad (not enough turbulence for a complete burn, plus a small fuel/air charge trying to burn in relatively large cylinders. Oil pressure is low and less oil gets squirted onto the cylinder walls, and the valve train gets less oil and cooling.
GADS!!! You wouldn't SERIOUSLY sleep in a van with the engine running, would you? Thats a good way to get carbon monoxide poisoning (catalytic convertors don't work very well during extended idling, either).
If it were a camper/van, I'd say install an electric A/C and run it from a portable generator set up AWAY from the van. No other real ideas.
Not in the concentrations normally found in modern vehicle exhausts, but the common sense principle remains valid nonetheless.
The last Air Care test for my '89 showed the CO concentration to be
0.02% from a warm engine: enough to do some harm, maybe, but not a lethal dose. LD50 is something like 0.08% for about two to three hours, or 1.28% for about three or four minutes.Exhaust gases entering the cabin still can't be too healthy though...
I'm guessing those lethal concentrations are in air, not car exhaust.
Think "Oxygen Displacement".
Not in current-production vehicles. They just don't produce that much CO anymore. Certainly it wouldn't happen if you were snoozing in the vehicle when it's parked outside somewhere.
Don't bet on that, at least not with your life. Catalysts don't work as well during extended idle as they do during cruise or brief periods of idle after cruise. I'd be willing to bet if you monitored CO concentration in exhaust, it would increase steadily the longer you allowed the engine to idle.
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