The average car is maintained based on a time schedule or the mileage, measuring the useful life of lubricants and wear items on the engine. Vehicles can rack up hours and hours of idle time while doing very little mileage at all. If ignored, the result can be catastrophic engine damage.
For example, a 2016 Ford F550 with the 6.7L Power Stroke engine with just 27,000 miles did duty as a tow rig for an auction company. Spending much of its time idling or doing low-speed jobs on the lot, it may have been maintained according to a typical time or mileage schedule.
The oil pan had large amounts of sludge and the oil pickup looked almost entirely blocked. The oil itself was a rich grey-black color, showing it had gone far beyond a reasonable change interval and picked up plenty of little bits of engine along the way. The turbo was also destroyed from a lack of sufficient lubrication. Ford recommends different maintenance intervals for vehicles that regularly idle for long periods.
Read the article at The Drive.
