"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...

We once had a post here from a guy who was responsible for diesel
maintenance on a fleet of trucks at a gold mine in northern Canada.
He said that basically the trucks idled all winter, over 3,000 engine
hours each. He said that by spring the engines were mostly junk if I
recall correctly.

In contrast, a heavy duty diesel in normal service, and with good
maintenance, will go 5,000 to 10,000 hours between overhauls.

That figures.
Many years ago my employers sent me to Canada in the winter to find out how
they managed to start diesels on oilrigs in winter. I found that basically
they never stopped them and even moved them from place to place still
running. I learned some drastic and time consuming methods they had devised
to start an engine that had been allowed to get really cold with the oil in
the sump turned to thick goo.