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NC Wayne
08-17-2005 19:16:40
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Hey guys I read an article today about a new technology created by CAT to save fuel during a machines "idle time" that I found quite interesting. I've thought about this matter before without any hard numbers on the fuel savings and now that I see them the "advanced" technology required makes even less sense than it did before. They were actually talking about wheel loaders but the concept is basically the same no matter what machine your talking about. They gave three different percentages of idle time, 10, 20, and 30 percent, but I think the 10% idle time is probably the closest to what most farm machinery might actually see. With the new idle control software the numbers add up like this---10% idle time = 1.3 liters of fuel saved per day = 390 liters per year = $224 per year saved or $2243 over a 10 year period. Even at the 30% level the total for a 10 year period wasn't but $6557. Now if you had a fleet of machines using this software and say half of them never had any downtime problems due to the complexity of the engine controls you might see a savings in 10 years, but if you've only got one or two machines all it takes is one service call outside of the warranty period and all the savings go down the drain. Based on the 10% scenario think about this. The machine makes it through the life of the warranty and onto 5 full years with no major problems, before the new money saving idle/engine control progam starts causing problems. So far it has saved you $1121.50. You live 50 miles from the dealership so that starts your bill with a $100+ mileage and say $250 ride time to get the mechanic (sorry, Technician) to your place and back to the shop. Figure the guy's really experienced (yeah, right) so once he's there it only takes him another 4 hours to trouble shoot and find the problem so there's another $336 to the bill. (I'm figuring a common labor rate around here of $84) Now the part he needs is off a machine that's now 5 years old so it isn't in stock anywhere but the factory in Japan, Timbuck Too, or where ever so it's gonna be a week to ten days to get it in, if that soon, unless you overnight it. So say conservatively $250 for the part and another $30 to overnight it. So far the total on your bill is around $966 already. Now the "technician" has got to come out again, add another$350, and actually perform the repair. This time the guy they send is a new guy so it's gonna take him a little longer to make the repair and he stays all day because not only does he have to change the part he has to reprogram the computer, check to be sure everything is working properly, and make sure the machine is actually repaired. Now we add another $672 for a full 8 hour day, plus $84 for time and a half on two extra hours he spent actually working on top of the two he spent riding to get your machine done in time to put it back to work the next day. Going by this scenario your gonna wind up with a final bill in the neighborhood of $2072. Now let me ask you, was it worth $2072 plus the extra money paid for the machine for the fuel saving technology that had to the point of the repair only saved you $1121.50 ? Not to mention that in the magazine I got the "fuel savings" info from there was a column that said in the face of rising fuel costs the new EPA compliant engines are now using fuel at a rate of 3 to 5% more than the older ones and they aren't sure how much worse that's gonna get when they get to the even newer Tier 4 engines. I don't know, someway, somehow "We The People" are gonna have to find a way to stop this insanity or we're all gonna be back standing in a bread line like they did so many years ago..... Just my .02 of common sense, for what it's actually worth nowdays....
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