now because of EPA mandate, my escalade and corvette automatically shuts off after an hour or so. Is that happening with the defender too?

 

2 hours? What good reason is there to idle a car for more than a few of minutes at a time? I can only guess you are sleeping in the car at night. My suggestion is to make-up with your spouse and hopefully you will be allowed back-in to your air condition house again.

 

Put me firmly in the "why the hell would anyone idle a car/truck motor for more than a few minutes at a time" camp.

Now that said, I don't know that it will necessarily cause damage. I mean I wouldn't say park over dry grass while doing it, the heat (especially in parts of the exhaust near the cat-con) will be pretty great and probably a fire hazard in the right conditions. And it would seem to be un-necessary wear but I don't think it would be specifically harmful.

 

My guess is either he's a contractor (we all do it), a private investigator, or, yeah, suck it up and go say you're sorry.

 

I usually travel to my second home in the south and would travel regularly 15 hours each way over a weekend or when we do travel coast to coast. We would normally park in a rest stop to relax or sleep until we proceed with our travel. I don't want to turn off the engine but would keep it running. My 2003 honda pilot would do it no problems(now 240k miles), my 2009 escalade hybrid(bought new and traded it after driving it for 195k miles) and my 2015 escalade platinum( bought new now with 263k miles. so far, only my GM vehicles(C8 corvette and 2015 escalade) have the one hour idle limit.

 

doctor with multiple homes lol.

 

Well Doc, when we (the misses, a NICU Physician and I) have slept in our vehicles (usually a Jeep) we have always chosen not to idle it for multiple reasons (not just that her tech husband, doesn't like the idea of extended use of the vehicle motor without any cooling airflow over the motor and related components).

As you well know carbon monoxide builds up in the blood stream over time and can have particularly deleterious effects.

Obviously you've not had a problem yet, but that's not a guarantee you can't/won't in the future. It just takes one small leak or crack, or weird way the vehicle is vented and the penalty is quite severe.

So if you insist on it, maybe you'd want to consider bringing a home CO detector for some assurances.

I still wouldn't do it personally, but I don't idle my vehicles for anything longer than a busy traffic light as it is.

 

I went to a drive-in movie theater with my daughters during the pandemic. Hadn't been to one in at least 25 years. Audio comes through an FM frequency. Can't leave the radio on for more than 10 minutes or so in the Defender without the engine running. Had to leave it running throughout the 1.5 hours movie. Nothing happened, vehicle kept idling. Next time, I'll bring a portable radio.

 

Ah, I see.

You could always investigate this as an option

 

I also leave a meter gap between the front and the curb (just in case), for those quick getaways.