Warm up idling

[OriginHacker21]

From what I've read and been told - idling is not good for an engine. I believe it was something about the oil pump not pumping oil as well if you were idling vs a slow drive off. (not a mechanic so don't take that for fact - just what I read).

I let me car idle till the RPMS level off - when I start my car the RPMs go up to 1500 - and slowly go down to 900rpms and settle there. This takes about 15-30 seconds depending on how cold the winter is. In the summer time - it takes 5 seconds for the rpms to stabilize. Definitely drive under 2500 rpms until the car doesn't rattle or clack when around 3k rpms (usually takes 2-3 minutes for my car).

When I lived in Iowa - we had a week of -22F (fingers would go numb in less than 4 minutes) - I can see why people would want to let their cars idle. I remember shivering so bad that I could barely hold onto the steering wheel for the first 2-3 minutes until heat started coming out of the heater. Out here in California - our winters in LA are 40s or so. Much easier on a car (no road salt etc...). Either way, I remember the engine complaining every RPM I pushed it to get warm air out of the heater.

 

[BlazerLT]

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Unless there is snow and ice on my truck I would never warm up for more than 30 seconds. A good set of wipers goes a long way when trying to see on a winter morning.

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No wiper can keep your windshield ice free when you are driving a cold vehicle.

Everytime I have driven away prematurely the windshield fogs up with condensation from my breath in the car leading to an almost opaque windshield.

 

[BlazerLT]

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Even if there is snow and ice to remove, why do you guys start the engine before doing this? I keep my snow brush in the house and always brush the snow and scrape the ice before I even get into the car.

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Because having your car idle for 3 minutes as you clear the snow off the car is killing two birds with one stone. You get sufficient lubrication flowing everywhere in the engine and you cvar is cleared.

Just because there is oil pressure doesn't mean there is flow.

I don't care what anyone says. there is NOT enough oil flow through the engine in 30 seconds to warrant pulling away and driving in cold weather.

People need to stop being so bloody cheap.

I once turned on my engine and reversed quickly and I was met by a engine crank knock. I lerarned my lesson there.

Tell me this, if you have ice on the inside of your windshield, how do you cold start drivers think it is safe to drive with an obstructed windshield?

 

[Trucku]

I keep my windshield clean throughout the day if it is or was snowing. I don't think it can be any good to drive with a icy engine at all. It was not designed to run efficiently that way, so your wasting gas driving it like that. so spend that gas warming her up and having a nice ride with clear vision.

 

[Warlord]

If you have good wipers they will make complete contact with the windshield and wipe away snow and fluid letting you see through the window. Nobody is talking about racing off at full throttle to warm their cars up. If you are very gentle with the throttle and don't let the rpms get too high I can't see why this would be worse than idling. I always assumed that idling would be worse since the thick oil is getting pumped so slowly.

 

[Trucku]

Cold idle will be about double your warm idle (well at least for my truck below 30F). That is way more than normal idle and a lot slower than any drive you attempt. My wipers wont remove ice though and the fluid just adds to the problem at that point. Time for the other end of the brush.

 

[BlazerLT]

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If you have good wipers they will make complete contact with the windshield and wipe away snow and fluid letting you see through the window. Nobody is talking about racing off at full throttle to warm their cars up. If you are very gentle with the throttle and don't let the rpms get too high I can't see why this would be worse than idling. I always assumed that idling would be worse since the thick oil is getting pumped so slowly.

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Wrong, regardless of your wipers, thay cannot remove frost or ice build up on your windshield.

And I am proof that driving immediately doesn't work in cold temperatures.

I started up my truck and just put it in reverse to move it backwards to make room in the driveway for another vehicle. The engine was crank knocking due to lack of oil flow through the engine.

There is little to no flow through the engine after 10 seconds. Sure there is pressure, but pressure is NOT flow, pressure is the actual resistance to flow. So more pressure is actually bad.

Revving your engine up without proper lubrication is far worse than allowing your engine oil to circulate for 2-3 minutes at startup especially in cold conditions.

#@$%!, even in warm temperatures i allow it to run for two minutes. There is not excessive fuel consumption and I will probably burn less gas then than I would revving up a cold engine with rings that haven't properly expanded and brought cylinder compression.

Anyone that is too cheap to allow 3 minutes of engine run time before driving off in the cold might as well sell their car and get their neurotic #@$%! a bike and pedal to work.

Anyone trying to pawn off some idiotic idia that I should start up my truck and drive off after 30 seconds up here in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada in -15f weather needs to just shut up and have a tall glass of reality.

it is just plain stupidity. And I need to have a relatively clear windshield to drive, that doesn't occur on a frosty morning in 30 seconds of run time.

 

[BlazerLT]

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Cold idle will be about double your warm idle (well at least for my truck below 30F). That is way more than normal idle and a lot slower than any drive you attempt. My wipers wont remove ice though and the fluid just adds to the problem at that point. Time for the other end of the brush.

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Idle rpms and running your engine under load are two different things.

Cold dropping your automatic transmission into drive when teh engine is cold idling is really hard on the transmission.

I allow my idle to drop to 900rpms before I put it in gear. This takes around 2-3 minutes.

 

[farrarfan1]

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If you have good wipers they will make complete contact with the windshield and wipe away snow and fluid letting you see through the window. Nobody is talking about racing off at full throttle to warm their cars up. If you are very gentle with the throttle and don't let the rpms get too high I can't see why this would be worse than idling. I always assumed that idling would be worse since the thick oil is getting pumped so slowly.

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Wrong, regardless of your wipers, thay cannot remove frost or ice build up on your windshield.

And I am proof that driving immediately doesn't work in cold temperatures.

I started up my truck and just put it in reverse to move it backwards to make room in the driveway for another vehicle. The engine was crank knocking due to lack of oil flow through the engine.

There is little to no flow through the engine after 10 seconds. Sure there is pressure, but pressure is NOT flow, pressure is the actual resistance to flow. So more pressure is actually bad.

Revving your engine up without proper lubrication is far worse than allowing your engine oil to circulate for 2-3 minutes at startup especially in cold conditions.

#@$%!, even in warm temperatures i allow it to run for two minutes. There is not excessive fuel consumption and I will probably burn less gas then than I would revving up a cold engine with rings that haven't properly expanded and brought cylinder compression.

Anyone that is too cheap to allow 3 minutes of engine run time before driving off in the cold might as well sell their car and get their neurotic #@$%! a bike and pedal to work.

Anyone trying to pawn off some idiotic idia that I should start up my truck and drive off after 30 seconds up here in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada in -15f weather needs to just shut up and have a tall glass of reality.

it is just plain stupidity. And I need to have a relatively clear windshield to drive, that doesn't occur on a frosty morning in 30 seconds of run time.

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Bravo! Nice insertion of common sense into a mess of, uhm, stuff...

 

[Patman]

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I hear a lot of people talk about how the LS1 is so noisy on a cold start but I just haven't ever heard it. I've owned two LS1 powered vehicles now and neither of them made any strange noises. Even this morning at 1F, with my Corvette parked outside, it sounded fine when I started it up.

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Hey, I don't know, maybe I (and others) just beat the #@$%! out or our LSxs more than you do. Or you just got one of the "quiet" ones.

All I know is that I would NEVER give up the performance of this engine/car for ALL of the supposed quiet and luxury of a Lexus (or any other sub exotic import for that matter).

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I'm not the hardest driver out there, but not the easiest either. With my first LS1 (98 Firebird Formula) I made over 250 quarter mile runs in the 2.5 years I owned it, plus tons of WOT on the street too. With my Corvette, I don't drive it quite as hard, but still manage to do about 15-20 quarter mile runs per year plus one or two full throttle blasts a day when the roads are dry.

 

[Sparkman]

A lot of the comments I see likely come from people who haven't lived with the extreme winter conditions present near the lake-effect regions of the great lake states. Driving off without fully-warmed coolant is unsafe, simple as that. Going out into single digit temperatures with extremely heavy snowfall and blowing and drifting conditions with a cold windshield is a recipe for disaster.

Wipers won't do anything without warm glass under them. Having the car in the garage is nice, but if it's snowing the wipers will only turn the snow into ice on the windshield until it the coolant gets warm enough to actually melt it. A heated garage and a block heater is the only way I think one could safely avoid at least some warm up idling. I say this after having owned a house with a heated garage for 6.5 years.

 

[dcoyne78]

My comments were not supposed to apply to all winter conditions. I agree with those who get lots of sonow and cold weather (upstate New York and parts of Canada) that 30 sec is not enough of a warmup if its very cold with lots of snow). I also was not referring to -15 F wth the car parked outside. If it is cold and no snow, then in many cases I can drive off with almost no warmup. My car is garaged, I have a block heater ,use 0W20 Mobil 1 and rarely see temps below -10 F outside (20 F in garage usually on these mornings). Obviously you have to be able to see out of your windshield so whatever is needed to accomplish this must be done. When I started this thread I was thinking about my neighbors running the car 10 min in 15 F weather with no snow, it seemed a waste to me, but its their money.

 

[Warlord]

Maybe I have magic wiper blades but if I clear off my windshield they make contact and clean fluid and snow away. Come to my house and I'll show you. Blazer, I don't know if you can get the toronto star in sudbury but if you can I suggest you pick up todays issue. It has a whole article dealing with this exact issue. It says never to idle longer than 30 seconds and says idling is worse for your engine. I guess you know more than them though.

 

[ScottB]

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Maybe I have magic wiper blades but if I clear off my windshield they make contact and clean fluid and snow away. Come to my house and I'll show you. Blazer, I don't know if you can get the toronto star in sudbury but if you can I suggest you pick up todays issue. It has a whole article dealing with this exact issue. It says never to idle longer than 30 seconds and says idling is worse for your engine. I guess you know more than them though.

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I wouldn't say that a daily newspaper has the good advice market cornered.
WHY is it bad?
What happens after 30 seconds?
Can't just say that without real reasons to back it up.
It it's true, data will tell and I'll be happy to follow that advice.

 

[etc.]

I live in the Great Lakes area, and I've found if I dont let my Prizm warm up for at least 4 minutes I have inside condensation. Which like said above can be dangerous. Also I cant dilly dally when it comes to getting up to speed, if I do I will have Freightliner on my bumper.

Dont get me wrong I try and take it easy when I can, but sometimes its not possible.

I'm surprised the gentlemen with the entrance ramp hasnt found this true when getting on the e-way.

So IMO, its better to let it warm up enough to have clear windows than being peeled off a semi's bumper

 

[DragRace]

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A lot of the comments I see likely come from people who haven't lived with the extreme winter conditions present near the lake-effect regions of the great lake states. Driving off without fully-warmed coolant is unsafe, simple as that. Going out into single digit temperatures with extremely heavy snowfall and blowing and drifting conditions with a cold windshield is a recipe for disaster.

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Yup, I agree. I'd like to see some of the people on this thread just jump in and go without warming their vehicle up during the winter months here, you wouldn't get far

 

[CharBaby]

Every time that I have tried to just start the engine and drive off slowly on a cold day, the inside of my windshield frosted or fogged up while I was driving causing me to pull over and allow the windshield to clear enough to drive safely. As the matter of fact, all the windows fogged from the warm body temp and breath. And the more people in the car the worst it is. Im not saying, i.e. that people should start their engines and go into the house and eat breakfast before leaving for work in the morning.

 

[dcoyne78]

One final comment and I will let this die until next winter. This past weekend was pretty cold here in Maine (-12 F at 6 AM) and I was on a ski trip so my car was parked outside from Friday night around 9 PM to 7 PM Saturday with no starts in between, high during the day was 10 F and by 7 PM had dropped back to 3 F. My daughter was waiting for me to pick her up and was standing outside waiting for me, so I started and drove off as usual. Bad idea! Now I realize what those saying no warm up is crazy are talking about. I drove very slowly to let the engine warm up, but had my daughter not been waiting outside with wind chills around -10 F I would have pulled over and let it idle for a few minutes. I am still not sure 15 minutes would be necessary under these particular conditions, but my guess is that a 5 minute warm up would have been better for my engine. Where you are parked (inside vs outside) makes a big difference.

 

[Patman]

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One final comment and I will let this die until next winter. This past weekend was pretty cold here in Maine (-12 F at 6 AM) and I was on a ski trip so my car was parked outside from Friday night around 9 PM to 7 PM Saturday with no starts in between, high during the day was 10 F and by 7 PM had dropped back to 3 F. My daughter was waiting for me to pick her up and was standing outside waiting for me, so I started and drove off as usual. Bad idea!

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But you didn't give us a reason why you thought it was a bad idea.

 

[Drew99GT]

3 connecting rods were chillin in the parking lot.