Warming up your car in winter....?!?

[69GTX]

Modestly driving one's car at 1500-2000 rpm (20-45 mph) as soon as the idle speed is normal is far from "significantly loaded" or stressed out. The factory during engine stress testing, cycles that stone cold engine dozens or hundreds of times up to much higher rpms. Sitting there at idle in frigid ambient temps will take quite some time for the engine to warm up. The few times I had to do it, it must have taken 10-15 minutes to reach normal coolant temps.....and we all know the oil temp is lagging well behind that. I much prefer the 3-5 minutes it takes when driving moderately.

 

[charbaby]

They shouldn't say that warming up your engine is "BAD" for the engine, they should say that it "ISN'T OPTIMAL".
However, for those who neglect maintenance, warming up the engine may be BAD but for those who are aware of good maintenance(at least by the OM), warming up the engine makes the daily commute more tolerable.

I have and will continue to warm up my engine until my interior gets enough heat to melt the ice & defog the windows and make my wife & I more comfortable. I've never lost an engine yet and I've kept vehicle into their teens w/many 100K's of miles. My dad(who would be 105 yrs old), warmed his engines for he & mom; never lost an engine! His cars were old and he oil he used was the oil of the day...Hmmm!

 

[Linctex]

Originally Posted by Cujet
I do question the need to immediately drive a stone cold engine under significant load, which creates high cylinder pressures and high ring loadings, to heat it quickly and thereby create less wear.


and having the piston rock because they haven't expanded up to temp, either.

I know, I know - - hypereutectic eliminate a lot of this,

but I still don't think it's good for an engine to be driven when it is FRIGID COLD until the oil can run back down into the pan at a more normal rate.

Originally Posted by Chris142
Yes. Your engine must run very rich when its cold. The longer it runs cold the more fuel will be getting past the rings and also washing the cylinders down. Getting in and driving will get the engine warmed up faster so there's less fuel being injected.


But - - - it's not just rich at idle only - - it's very rich and spraying a lot of extra fuel droplets when you accelerate under load with a cold engine.

The fuel mixture doesn't automatically go stoichiometric just because you started driving the car. It stays fairly rich until the ECT sender tells the ECU to lean it up a bit.

 

[Linctex]

Originally Posted by 69GTX
Modestly driving one's car at 1500-2000 rpm (20-45 mph) as soon as the idle speed is normal is far from "significantly loaded" or stressed out.


I agree, and i follow this - - but this can take several minutes on many vehicles depending on the temp.

 

[Shannow]

Why does the strawman argument have to be that arguing against statically warming up an engine is a full throttle quarter pass ?

Have posted over and over the studies that show that low load, 2-3,000 RPM operation leads to far quicker warmup than sitting idling.

The oil can drain back just fine...if it could pump up there, it can come back down...if there's an extra cup or two held in the upper reaches of the engine in that cold state equilibrium...so what ? what does it matter ?

If you want your kit to last the longest, drive of in some sort of semblance of normaility...it warms up quicker, spends LESS TIME warming up (which is the wear issue), and the trans, diffs and seals all start to warm up moderately too.

BUT a car is an appliance...and if you need heat to make it safe...just do it...just don't try to argue that because YOU need heat, that idling is the best thing for a car.

Question...if you warm it up at idle, then do a full throttle quarter mile (people seem to think that to drive the vehicle implies something akin to full throttle)...what happens to your gearbox, diff, and seals ???

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted by maxdustington
If you try to drive when your car is ice cold you will just fog the windshield and crash anyway.

The people who write this must be from somewhere warm.


x2.

Also, idling an engine would just put it in the severe use category. IMO, it's not good or bad aside from the extra fuel consumption.

 

[demarpaint]

In the perfect world I start the engine and idle it until the tach drops to about 1,000 rpm. I don't like slamming an automatic transmission into gear, or glazing a clutch when an engine is revving high while taking off. Having said that if I need heat to defrost windows I will idle the engine until I can remove ice from my windows without having to hack and chop it off.

 

[Andrew1972]

I fall into either don't warm up call at all no matter temp or warm up while I scrape and do something. My cars all running really well into the 200k-250k range.

I accelerate gently with stone cold motor.

 

[Sayjac]

I read the article on MSN earlier this morning and thought the reasoning made/makes sense. I'd think that with the rise in GDI engines even more so.

That said, practically speaking best practice may not always be possible, frost, ice, snow and such being limiting factors especially on ungaraged vehicles. That rarely an issue here. So generally speaking, start engine, check gauges, buckle seat belt put in gear and slowly pull away with gradual increase to driving speed.

 

[SeaJay]

Maybe it shortens the engine life a bit & maybe it puts a few more puffs of carbon in the air. But when its below 20F & the window is frosted over, I will warm up the old war wagon for a few minutes before embarking.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Originally Posted by Linctex
I agree, and i follow this - - but this can take several minutes on many vehicles depending on the temp.


^^This.

Plus if you live right off the highway and basically are on the entrance ramp as soon as you leave your driveway.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted by SeaJay
Maybe it shortens the engine life a bit & maybe it puts a few more puffs of carbon in the air. But when its below 20F & the window is frosted over, I will warm up the old war wagon for a few minutes before embarking.



This is what people with common sense are saying. Yes you are causing more wear but saftey is the #1 factor. If you need a warm car to remove ice and fog warm the car.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted by CARJ
Around here, it's illegal to let your car warm up...Apparently people steal cars that way.

When I use my remote start, the car will shut itself off as soon as any door is opened, including the rear hatch...I suppose that must be an anti-theft thing, but it is sure a PITA for me.
I only use remote start when I am skiing and it is genuinely cold out, I hide the fob away somewhere where nobody is going to touch it when I'm home because I sure don't want my car starting itself when it's in the garage. You need to give it two firm presses for a start, but I'm not taking any chances.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Up here, if your car is parked outside in December, January, February and March , this whole discussion would seem pretty silly. You need to see out of your windows before you can drive. And no, we don't lose engines because of idling.

By the way, the remote start was the best invention since sliced bread.

 

[ragtoplvr]

In the carburated days engines did not routinely last over well 100K miles without overhaul. This was from poor fuel vaporization actually washing oil off the cylinder walls. With fuel injection this does not occur, if it does it will not be for over a few seconds.

I used to make sure the heated air cleaner was hooked up and functional. I used to even add a second snorkel for better performance , and convert to manual chokes that I could turn off soon as possible.. I did have engines last over 200K miles. The engine would have lasted longer, but the car body was gone.

Rod

 

[HemiHawk]

Originally Posted by dave1251
Originally Posted by SeaJay
Maybe it shortens the engine life a bit & maybe it puts a few more puffs of carbon in the air. But when its below 20F & the window is frosted over, I will warm up the old war wagon for a few minutes before embarking.

This is what people with common sense are saying. Yes you are causing more wear but saftey is the #1 factor. If you need a warm car to remove ice and fog warm the car.

This is pretty much what I go with as well. Now that I've fixed my doors I've been parking in the garage which means I don't really need a warmup. But if there is frost on the windows I'll manually scrape the ice off while the car/truck warms up. But until there is hot air to clear the windshield and see safely I'm not moving.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by Virtus_Probi
When I use my remote start, the car will shut itself off as soon as any door is opened, including the rear hatch...I suppose that must be an anti-theft thing, but it is sure a PITA for me.
I only use remote start when I am skiing and it is genuinely cold out, I hide the fob away somewhere where nobody is going to touch it when I'm home because I sure don't want my car starting itself when it's in the garage. You need to give it two firm presses for a start, but I'm not taking any chances.

My Highlander was like that. As soon as you touched the handle it would shut off, there was no way to get into it with it still running. The Chrysler system allows you to unlock/open the doors but as soon as you go to step on the brake to take it out of park it shuts down if it doesn't detect the key or authorized fob. This allows an authorized person to drive away without having to re-start the vehicle. It's nice that they do it this way for wear/tear on the starter.

It really annoyed me with the Toyota that I had to re-start the vehicle because it would shut down as soon as I grabbed the handle to the car in remote-start mode.

 

[thooks]

I don't care what anyone with a microphone says....

I use my EDUCATION that I have obtained from reading and listening to those that express confidence in subjects to form my own opinion and my plan of action for anything I do.

If it's below 30, I will let my vehicles run / idle for a couple of minutes at a minimum; I feel this allows some oil to be thorough distributed in the engine, puts a SMALL amount of heat in it, etc. I will then drive easy for a couple of miles. I like to use common sense. None of us would enjoy being woken up at 2:40 am and asked to run full speed 9 seconds later with someone's boot on their neck. Don't ask a mechanical device to do it, either.

While I see DAs all around me jump in a vehicle, start it and put it in reverse/drive before the RPMs have wound down from the starter, I don't. I at least let some oil get pumped to the top of the engine before I even put my foot on the brake.

 

[Snagglefoot]

On my GM Fob, I have to press Lock, then Start. Good safety feature. Then, the key has to inserted and turned to the on position before you can put it in gear.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by Virtus_Probi
When I use my remote start, the car will shut itself off as soon as any door is opened, including the rear hatch...I suppose that must be an anti-theft thing, but it is sure a PITA for me.

I think your remote start is broken, wired wrong, or mis-configured. That is NOT normal behavior with any remote-start I've ever heard of. Most will shut off if you put your foot on the brake before inserting and turning the key. That is an anti-theft arrangement (and takes getting used to).