How long do you let your car warm up?

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
I like to fire up, allow a second or two to look over my readouts and then into gear, just drive easy for a mile or two for a 'warmup'.

That's about all I do in any sensible weather up here. I dare you to try that in -40, though. Your breath will freeze up your readouts, not to mention the glass, and you'll be out of luck for a few minutes.

 

[whip]

Originally Posted By: TFB1
Approx two min at 50F and add two min for each 10* below that...

Serious question. Why? Of all of the cars I've owned, I've never had an engine fail. I've owned cars with over 300,000 miles, and the bodies were shot, but the engine runs fine. What are you protecting it from? Almost every manufacturer recommends driving the vehicle to warm it up.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
I like to fire up, allow a second or two to look over my readouts and then into gear, just drive easy for a mile or two for a 'warmup'.

That's about all I do in any sensible weather up here. I dare you to try that in -40, though. Your breath will freeze up your readouts, not to mention the glass, and you'll be out of luck for a few minutes.

Sorry, I didn't mean to rub it in! I have about two freezing days a year here, that -40 is NOT happening!

 

[glock19]

I don't really warm the car up. I start it and then put on my seat belt and get comfortable just to give it a few seconds to get the oil pressure up. Then I just drive it easy until the temp gauge hits operating temp.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Start it...seat belt on, radio on, phone plugged in to charge, quick mirror check, lights/wipers on if needed, and go. It runs maybe a minute before I go. If it's REALLY cold (below 10 degrees), I will idle it another minute or two. I would idle my F-350 at least a couple minuted if below 40 degrees, because if I didn't, it would sputter and smoke when I drove off.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Sorry, I didn't mean to rub it in! I have about two freezing days a year here, that -40 is NOT happening!

It was cold enough today to set off my TPMS thanks to the temperature differential in my heated garage and the outdoors this morning. Well, at least with the heated garage, I don't worry much about a warm up.

 

[hattaresguy]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
I never idle any engine. When its cold I put them under a light load until they reach operating temp.


This is what the designers allow for. Hybrid powertrains start up at many different speeds and may run at near or full power immediately.

I like to fire up, allow a second or two to look over my readouts and then into gear, just drive easy for a mile or two for a 'warmup'.

And I agree with Demarpaint, this is a recurring question here...


Yep, and I can tell very few people here have any experience with big diesels because they just won't warm up at idle in the winter! Loading is required to reach operating temp.

Running cold doesn't hurt engines, military and generators too start them at 0 and run them to 100% load in 30-60 seconds.



Some people must think the guys that design these motors are slow, their isn't an engine made today except for some high strung race motors that can't be started and brought to full load in under a minute. Cars don't bring their engines to full load, well just about ever.

That MTU holds more oil than a Civic uses in its life time, and its capable of pumping it around to a bunch of turbo's and going on boost and full load in just over 9 seconds. To do the same in a car you would have to hook a trailer up to it, point it down a road and floor it in 2nd gear, all within 10 seconds of it firing off. That's full load, idling down the street doing 25 is probably 10% load if that.

So yes, warming up a car to idle to work is a waste of time.

 

[EricF]

In the cold weather I go about 2 minutes, sometimes more if I have to wait for my son to get ready.
in the summer, usually it's about a minute, sometimes more if my son isn't ready to go.
If I'm going alone, I wait about 90 seconds to 2 minutes so the oil can flow and get moving.

back in 1989 when I got my Firebird, I was goign to high school and didn't like to wait. the engine would idle at 1500 and stay there for at least a minute, then slowly work itself to 900.
So for a week, I didn't wait, engine started, I took off.
I'd get to school (3miles away) and the choke will still on.
I got (no joke!) 80 miles with 12gallons of gas.
Thankfully, gas was $.87/gal then.
So I waited the 2 minutes, got my regular mileage back, and all I had to do was wait 2 minutes. In the Summertime, I waited about 30 seconds, it didn't idle so fast then.

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
I like to fire up, allow a second or two to look over my readouts and then into gear, just drive easy for a mile or two for a 'warmup'.

That's about all I do in any sensible weather up here. I dare you to try that in -40, though. Your breath will freeze up your readouts, not to mention the glass, and you'll be out of luck for a few minutes.

Sorry, I didn't mean to rub it in! I have about two freezing days a year here, that -40 is NOT happening!



Hehehe. It gets so cold here tires need a few miles to gets rounded again.
Driving down the road and you can feel the thump thump thump of the flat spot that got frozen in overnight.
When its that cold I let the car get warm enough to blow somewhat warm is hair otherwise the windshield will frost up on the inside from breathing and you end up having to scrape the inside of the windshield just to see to drive.
Its amazing engines can operate in conditions like that and still run past 300000 miles.

 

[Artem]

30 seconds minimum, even if its 90F outside. It's not so much about building heat, as much as its about getting the oil flowing before I apply any engine load.

This is usually how long it takes me to slowly pull outta the garage, wait for the garage to close and slowly drive off and out of my neighborhood.

If it's freezing outside, I'll idle for a minute or so, to slow give the oil plenty of time to circulate the engine and then I'm off.

My engines seem happy.

 

[bdcardinal]

On the '14 I start it and let it run while i play with the radio and scroll through all the songs on my iPod or scroll through my presets on Sirius to find whatever I want to listen to on the drive into work. Usually takes me 30-45 seconds and then I head off. I have a readout for oil temp and cylinder head temp on the middle cluster display.

 

[Vikas]

I start driving my car almost immediately but don't beat on it. If I need to clean the snow or scrape the windshield, first I start the car. In that situation, it will idle as long as it takes for me to finish the cleaning.

 

[OVERKILL]

I fire it up and wait for it to come off high idle. This varies in time. Once the idle has settled I will slowly drive off.

In the winter, I will let it run while I scrape the windows.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I wait till the temp needle begins to move,then I drive.

 

[Tzu]

I think it depends on each vehicle. My '00 Silverado 5.3 has a slight knock if you just start up and go. I absolutely hate hearing it do that, so I give it a minute warmup during warm weather and about 3 minutes in the winter. Quiet as a mouse doing it that way. Our '00 Impala with the 3800 sounds good just starting and moving in any temperature, but I drive it like my truck anyway. My beater '91 Camry 4 cylinder still seems tight and I don't really notice any noise starting and leaving. I warm them up for my comfort, not worrying about 10 cents worth of fuel or trashing the oil. They range from 221,000 miles up to 290,000 miles. Can't be that bad.

 

[IndyIan]

Depends, if I'm in a hurry, warm up time is maybe 1-2 seconds... However long it takes to get my hand off the key and onto the shifter and get into reverse. If its below -10C then I'll start it and scrape the windows if necessary.
On the Neon if I was tight for time and had a interior fogging problem, I would drag the brakes at half throttle to get thing warmed up in a minute or two... Didn't really seem to bother anything.

 

[SLCraig]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
On the Neon if I was tight for time and had a interior fogging problem, I would drag the brakes at half throttle to get thing warmed up in a minute or two... Didn't really seem to bother anything.


I love it

 

[KenO]

Originally Posted By: TallPaul
If you have to pull out of your driveway onto a 55 mph highway, I would say give it a minute or two driveway warmup. But normally you do not want to sit and warm it up. Drive off immediately on slower streets, if it is extremely cold, drive around in the neighborhood a couple minutes, but otherwise you can hit surface streets at 40 /45 mph pretty quick, just be easy on the throttle, don't gun it or floor it. I usually go down my street, about 1/4 mile to a 35 mph street, another half mile on that to the freeway and then get on gently but not so as to hinder traffic. Never have any problems with that routine.




This. I only let my vehicles 'warm up' until they idle down off the initial high idle. Starting it and immediately putting it into D (for an auto trans at least) can be a bit hard on the trans, let the rev's drop to their more normal idle rpm's first. Some cars this is, 2-3 seconds, sometimes 10-15, depending ont he car and ambient temp.

 

[NHHEMI]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
Hehehe. It gets so cold here tires need a few miles to gets rounded again. Driving down the road and you can feel the thump thump thump of the flat spot that got frozen in overnight.


You should be in my Jeep when I am towing my duck boat 1st thing in the morning during late duck season( usually in the low 20's or teens but can be below zero ). The awful bias ply tires on my new trailer flat spot and take FOREVER to warm up enough to be round again. I swear it is going to shake the vehicle apart. They aren't too bad until it drops below 30 degrees but once it gets down to the low 20's and into the teens or below it just gets worse and worse the colder it gets. Mornings when it is single digits or even below zero they don't warm up enough to stop even when I have reached the launch some 25 miles away.

When cold mornings arrive I have to take a very specific route to the launch so that I can gradually increase speeds. Luckily it generally is early enough in the morning( 3-4 AM or so )that I can get away with 15-20 in the 25 and then 30 in the 40. I have to gradually increase speeds as the tires warm up. If I go my normal route I hit a 40 MPH stretch just a couple miles away that I just can't do until I have driven at least 10-15 miles and even then it may not be enough as said above.

I need to get some radial tires for the trailer like I had on my other trailer. NEVER had this bad of a problem. It would do it for like 2 miles after leaving home and no where near as bad. Just some thump thump thump as you talk of not SSSSSHHHHAAAAKKKKEEE - RRRRAAATTTTLLLLEEEE - BBBAAAANNNGGG - repeat.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any in the size I need( 5.30 X 12 ). Actually I found one company that offered them but was told their tires are awful so I am still looking.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Depends, if I'm in a hurry, warm up time is maybe 1-2 seconds... However long it takes to get my hand off the key and onto the shifter and get into reverse. If its below -10C then I'll start it and scrape the windows if necessary.
On the Neon if I was tight for time and had a interior fogging problem, I would drag the brakes at half throttle to get thing warmed up in a minute or two... Didn't really seem to bother anything.


I never tried that in my 98 R/T. It warmed up so fast it was always ready for action. I miss the 'spirited' feel of that little car...