Chris, it wakes you up in the morning, you know your alive, -40F is cold, when I lived 7 miles north of Lake Athabaska in Uranium City Sask. back in the 70's it got down to -59F, you can see mini ice crystals in the air, crisp. You will never see a better light show in colours on the spectrum then the northern lights in the north when in a cold winters night, spectacular. No fireworks can beat it.
American friends in Alaska can tell you some cold temps
and testimonials too.
Thing about the cold, it clears up air born viruses, everything is crisp and clean, hardly ever wash a vehicle, stays clean.
In my experience -60F with no wind is easier to deal with than 0F with a 40 mph wind, that wind chill will go right through anything you wear and chill you to the bone, also no heat pad or block heater can hold heat on block or oil if not sheltered from wind, they can in extreme cold with calm wind in my experience. When my vehicle sits in -35F inside a non heated garage, with heat pad and blockheater I get an easier start than hot summer day.
It is matter of one's local enviroment and adaptation to it, what is normal for one may seem extreme to others in different local I guess. Our wood stove is stoked, feels dam good with a whiskey after a day in the cold, life's
little rewards.
To note, this is why an oil forum like this can be bit difficult on discussions of cold temp starts, the vast enviromental disparities.
One way I look at it is this, high wear metal zone is when oil is under 160F. When you start your car up in +90F and drive off, you are still in high wear metal zone for quite some time. When I go out in -40F with my wolverine heat pad on my oil pan and 900 watt block heater on. (these
wolverine pads will make oil go to full operating temp in 5-6 hours in -40F as long as there is no wind sweeping away the heat, colder it gets up here, less the wind). At -40F startup with these heaters my oil is probably warmer than yours there at startup, blockheater warms the block, along with a 0-40 XD3 syn oil rated at -60F flow rate. When I start it and drive off gentle it may not be as bad for that engine as one in your area may think. My 92 Cummins diesel with pads/blockheater/0-40 syn oil will start with no more drag or cranking than summer and with winter frond it warms extremely fast with gentle drive off after idle.
Just a perspective, I would prefer starting my vehicles the same as you do each day Chris, but one copes with ones enviroment best one can and access everything to cope. When I worked 1.5 miles underground in a hardrock mine the enviroment seemed difficult at first, after a week it was old hash, just matter of adaptation and dealing with it, nothing is so bad once one bites the bullet and adapts, always seems worse thinking about extremes in my experience.
Just little insight, it is Sunday, shooting the........ Off topic, I know. Sorry.
Cyprs