By the time I've come down my residential street at 25mph, idled up my driveway and into my garage stall, turn things off and switch off the key, it's fine.

If I lived at the top of a hill or for some other reason had the turbo temp up shortly before parking, I'd consider a cool-down necessary.

You learn a lot by driving a turbodiesel with a pyrometer/EGT gauge.

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

this summer i was working on a house at the top of a big hill- I was not really thinking about the car, but the job at hand, drove up and shut off the car, had a decent load in the car and a hard run up the hill.

came back for lunch, and there was a puddle of coolant under the car about 4' in diameter! after checking all the hose' and such, I realized that the coolant that was stagnant in the head had boiled out, because the head was so hot and I had not allowed it to cool.
after lunch, and the same hill, similar load, etc, I let the car idle while I unloaded some materials- maybe 2-3 minutes- no puddle, and ambient temps were even higher. good thing I have a 617, or it could have been bad.

__________________
1984 123.193 372,xxx miles, room for Seven.

1999 Dodge Durango Cummins 4BTAA 47RE 5k lb 4x4 getting 25+mpgs, room for Seven.

Goldenbear sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

As for Clacker's lack of power, I have seen the same in my '81 300SD. It does not get very cold in Atlanta so this problem rarely shows here. However last winter I spent a few days near Brevard, NC, and it was cold. The condo was located at the bottom of a steep hill. When I got ready to drive up the next morning, the SD started fine but it absolutely could not get up the hill. I thought that it probably needed warm up time because I have driven up that steep hill before but I was in a hurry. So I turned around and backed up the hill. It was really straining but it worked. Nothing that I could do in forward would get me up the hill.

So the SD must lack power in really cold climates until it gets warm.