Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
Originally Posted By: James Miranda
Ok then, following this logic, is it better for my wife to warm up the Grand Caravan for 5 minutes or so during out Canadian winters for her 2-3 km drive to and from work? My guess is yes, as the M1 will protect the engine during the longer idle and hopefully will bring up the engine to temp.
Or maybe just make sure she does a longer drive once or twice a week in addition to burn off any condensation build up. I can see arguments either way.
Warming up isn't better - it's usually ineffective without a load, actually. I've never had a vehicle which warms up from idling in winter. In my current vehicle (a 1998 BMW 528) if I have the HVAC set to auto it will actually lose temperature if I park and idle before it's warmed up (eg. wait in the car for the missus at a very close errand). If I have the HVAC set "low" it will merely stop warming up until I resume actually driving. I would almost say that it would "never" actually warm up from cold idling with the HVAC on "auto". My cooling system/tstat all works fine (I've had three tstats over the life of the car and the behaviour is the same) and the other two cars I've had (1990 Acura Integra, 1992 Porsche 968) have behaved pretty much the same way.
The best thing for her to do *for the car* is to drive without heat, or with the heater fan set low. Between the cold, super-short drive, and the large HVAC heat load from a MINIVAN the engine isn't retaining any heat. It also needs to get on longer trips on the weekend. Perhaps get a block heater on timer before leaving.
I've found that reducing the HVAC fan speed, or driving with it completely off on really short trips, dramatically reduces my warmup time and has greatly reduced the crankcase condensation. On longer trips everything is set to auto once there's some heat in the engine.
The best thing to do may be to carpool, take the bus, walk, bike or something else for only 2km unless dropping kids off and whatnot is part of that 2km.
The misses isn't going to drive anywhere without heat, that is hilarious!
Take the van on some extended trips, that is the only way to solve it. My girlfriend and I both commute about 15 miles each way. That is plenty to keep condensation away in our cars.