Last week was hell in my neighborhood... after a couple of BIG storms, the electricity was
knocked out for nearly 3 days.

On the second night, I noticed that my neighbor's garage door was open and his car
was still running. (the only thing making sound in this quiet neighborhood) I chatted with
him and discovered that he had hooked up a DC-to-AC inverter to his leased '05 GS430.
The inverter's label said it was a 7000-watt peak, 3500-watt continuos unit. (!) It was about
the size of a Tivo DVR. (!!)

According to him, he had left the engine running for a day and half continuously... but filled
the car up once during that time... He said he wouldn't do that if he had bought the car...

My question is... (an obvious one).... was he damaging the car's engine?

P.S. He had his refrigirator and a computer running on that power... :

 

what an idiot! sure, the car survived, but there was some serious wear and tear going on somewhere. I'd never want to buy that one.

 

did you happen to take a look at the guy's temp gauage?? i bet that radiator was running pretty dang hot.

 

Idling for a day without external air cooling down the radiator. That can't be good

__________________

1999 Lexus GS400
-Stock

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I'm sure it didn't harm anything. As we all know Toyota/Lexus overengineers their cars...and more so on a Lexus. When the engine is running, there are fans that pull air thru the radiator to keep the system cool. I've idled my car for about 2 hours before and the temp needle didn't even move...this was on a HOT Texas day during a car show where temps outside were exceeding 105F. I had the hood popped open and I was inside with some friends with the AC running. The fan only kicks in every once in a while and it turns on only when the coolant reaches a certain temperature. If it's only turning on occasionally that should mean that the temperatures are still in check. As for engnie wear....the oil in the engine keeps everything lubed up and is meant to prevent wear and tear. As long as the oil in your engine is still in good shape, then there shouldn't be any damage.

Maybe someone can chime in on this?

My question is how did he hook up a 3500W inverter to his car? Unless he wasn't using the full 3500W. Even on a LS430 the alternator is probably a 120Amp unit as most. That calculates to around 1500Watts. If he used the full 3500W his car would of shut off eventually when the battery voltage dropped too low.

 

The inverter was left on the garage floor. It was connected directly to the car's battery posts
vial two clamps. I looked it up and the inverter's prices was about $600. (why he didn't just
get a gas-powered generator is beyond me... I guess he figured the car's engine is just
one giant generator? )

He had the hood open, and the rear of the GS430 sticking out of the garage(for ventilation).

The refrigirator was one of those old side-by-side models. I'm guessing it probably didn't
use up all the output of the inverter. The fridge only runs when the inside temp rise, right?

Come to think of it, how is this better or worse than driving for 48 hours straight? A few years
ago, my friends and I drove from NY to Seattle, nonstop.(except to switch drivers and for gas/food) The longest we stopped anywhere was about an hour, for meals. We got there
and back the same way....

 

idling is worse for a car than driving it at 2-3k rpm. no car is designed to idle for 48 hrs straight. it puts more load on cams, oil pressure is lower, no airflow to cool everything besides what those poor electric fans were pulling through the radiator. I'll bet that idle session put the equivalent of thousands of miles of wear on some components.

like I said, I wouldn't buy it.

 

I'm with you on this one Chuck

 

What usually happens when a car sits for too long, is the fuel washes out the cylinder walls due to lack of oil pressure over time, and you score the cylinders... his car may still run.. but im willing to bet it will start to drink a bit of oil as it get older. Not smart... but i guess he doesnt care because its a lease.. oh well.

 

There will be no damage to the engine at all.
However, according to the owner's manual, and an industry fact, is that the catalytic convertors should not see idle for more than about 1/2 hour in closed loop. They tend to cool off too much and become coated. A few full throttle bursts will probably clean them again, but that is not a certainty.
Many service trucks for heavy duty repair, and emergency and police vehicles, idle for extended periods without damage, and what damage their might be, will be the convertors only.
Modern engine management systems do not add fuel like carburetors used to do, and fuel wash of the cylinders is a thing of the past. This is one of the reasons modern engines do not develop cylinder wall ridges as they age, unlike old carburetor engines.

 

so you'd let your new + $50k Lexus idle for 48hrs?

 

Sort of like the George Constanza rule... why take your girlfriend to a lobster dinner when
you're going to break up on the same night?

I guess the bottom line is that some people do not take care of their leased vehicles...
When I bought my second Lexus, the finance lady asked me why I was paying cash,
instead of leasing, like 80% of their customers....

 

No I wouldn't idle my Lexus, regardless of price for 48 hours. But the reason is not to avoid engine damage, but because it is a very inefficient way of generating power. I'd just buy a genset and let it run continuously for 48 hours or whatever. For $500.00 it's way more efficient than the way that owner connected his Lexus.
A pal of mine is a long distance truck driver, and in Canada that means sleeping in the sleeper. At outside temperatures above 80 F. or below 0 F. that means leaving the engine running to operate either the heater or the air conditioning system. Visit any big truck stop and there may be 100 trucks idling all night, or all day simply to run a heater or a compressor. Done all the time.

 

If a 500 dollar generator can run all day and night im sure a lexus could take it for a few days. I also noticed that a Toyota prius has a feature to power up a few circuts in your home buy pluging it in durring an outage. I wonder if some of the Lexus Hybrids have that feature?

 

I dont care if you are leasing the vehicle or not, thats just a serious abuse of a fine luxury vehicle. Shame.

Hell, go rent a Kia for a few days and use that as your generator......