My wife was warned by a gasser mechanic that she should not use this truck as a daily shopper. I bought this to replace my 03 T.V. that was a gasse for the time when I upgrade my RV. Plus the fact I fell in love with this truck at the dealership. In short , my wife has the 06 Duramax while I use the company van. Is this hurting the truck with the short trips to the stores and what not?

Matt

I am no expert but the newer diesel engines seem to be built much better. look at how many family cars have the diesel option. I drove the hell out of my moms diesel VW rabbit around town and the new VW jetta diesel's are great, and meant to be driven in town.

maybe im wrong but I dont see where it would really hurt it. arent hummers diesel? and they seem to get a lot of short trips in town. (where I live anyway) just my .02

15 + miles in town each way to work and back.

Short trips are problems for gasoline, diesel, heck even electric cars.

On gas and diesel motors, combustion makes water vapor, the water vapor gets in the crankcase and accumulates. Since you don't get the engine up to full temp, the water doesn't burn out of the oil. Change oil more often. And since you are starting the engine more times per 1,000 miles, the initial wear you get every time you start due to no oil pressure also increases.

You also have more wear on the starter, the electrical system, etc, etc. You might have noticed cars or trucks with over 100,000 miles of freeway driving are in far better shape than urban cars/trucks with similiar mileage. It's unavoidable.

:iamwithst Ditto!

When I had a 3 mile commute to work, I purposely took the long way (10 miles) or let the truck idle before leaving to let it warm up.

I also installed the high idle to assist with warm up in the winter.

You dont say how many miles she drives for "grocery getting".

I start mine and go like 30 times everyday

I think lots of this is in the urban myth category. True, short trips are harder on ANY vehicle than unloaded highway miles. BUT in my opinion, the new diesels suffer no more than any other vehicle driven in similar conditions. Pay attention to maintanence, change oil regularly etc. and you will be in fine shape.

My truck sees a 5 mile each way trip every day to/from work in addition to it's weekend trips etc. (I put 20K miles on it in the first year so not much of it is stop and go)

Back in the 50's and 60's Cal Highway Patrol used to run their vehicles for 300,000 miles before getting rid of them.. Did not shut them off between shift changes. Just for maintenance. Short trips in anything are more wearing on the engine than long distance runs and it is the starting and shutting down that take the toll. Most privately owned vehicles in that time were good for 80 to 90 K miles before they were worn out. Short trips will shorten engine life.