What is a "short trip"?

[buster]

The general rule to my knowledge was under 10 miles. However, what if your car in the summer gets up to operating temperature in a minute and you drive 4 miles.? Is that still considered a short trip? Is that considered severe service? In the winter it would be.

 

[Fattylocks]

When you get to wherever you're going and water is still dripping from the exhaust.

 

[kschachn]

I'd say it is any trip where the oil or coolant does not come up to normal operating temperature.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I consider short trips to be drives that are basically within a mile or so. Where the engine temp gauge never reaches the "fully warmed up" line. Say,around the block to the grocery store, etc.

 

[Hermann]

Currently have a vehicle that has a large front opening, plus a slow to warm up aluminum engine, My 3.3 mile trips back and forth to work in cold weather, barely had the water temp gauge half way to normal. The transmission is even slower to warm up to FOT of 185F. IMO these would both qualify as short trip, with no condensation burned off. My guess it takes my truck 15 miles to burn off the condensation. I no longer make these short trips as I have retired. Just my boring ramblings on a hot humid day. 🌶

 

[Surestick]

I'd say it is any trip where the oil or coolant does not come up to normal operating temperature.

I'd vote for oil coming up to temp being the important factor followed by battery charge >/=%80
If the oil doesn't come up to temp you aren't "burning-off" water in the oil. Oil temps lag behind coolant temp by some time (probably 5-10 min).

 

[xyxptlx]

Once it’s up to temp it take ~20 minutes to cook it off. A short drive is 30 minutes.

 

[edyvw]

The general rule to my knowledge was under 10 miles. However, what if your car in the summer gets up to operating temperature in a minute and you drive 4 miles.? Is that still considered a short trip? Is that considered severe service? In the winter it would be.

What car will reach operating temperature in a minute? Operating temperature is not coolant temperature. Your oil temperature is not going to be optimal in a minute.

 

[paulri]

Had a 98 Civic that defined severe service as trips under 5 miles, or trips under 10 miles if it was below freezing.

 

[ripcord]

Depends on the type of driving, too. It take longer to warm up the car if you're tootling down the road at 35 vs on the freeway.

 

[blupupher]

Short trip to me is when engine oil does not get up to operating temp.
It has nothing to do with coolant temp, distance, outside temp, how driven or anything else.

I'd vote for oil coming up to temp being the important factor followed by battery charge >/=%80
....

And now that I say that, I never thought about battery charge being a part of "short tripping" but in a way it is.
If you don't drive enough to recharge the battery from the startup, you will eventually have issues.
I do a periodic 2 amp battery charge on all my batteries, since all my vehicles do a fair amount of short trips.

 

[doublebase]

Great thread. I always hear anything under 30 minutes is a short trip, but does that count for summer? Or how about multiple short trips, errands, etc?

My drive to the gym is only seven miles, but I’m only at the gym for an hour - in the summer when I get back in my car to go home my temp gauge/engine, never really cools down much - then I drive it back home and I swear that thing is still hot three hours after I shut it off. Last week I did a 20 mile round trip and I was planning on doing a tranny service to my car; I needed the tranny fluid to cool off enough to do a tranny temperature check - it took four hours for that fluid to get down to 112 degrees. Four hours! And then when I started it up it immediately rose in temp. Summer is just different, these cars get to temp quick and stay there.

Winter, I think is where this “short trip” stuff applies, a lot more so than summer. I never see condensation coming from my exhaust in the summer. I never see my temp gauge not get up to range, like I do in the winter. There’s no cold start ups or freezing extreme cool off periods. So I do think summer is different and should be factored into the equation...and yet I don’t think it ever is.

 

[buster]

In the Subaru, oil temp definitely lags behind coolant. Once the engine is fully warm, I drive it a bit aggressively to get oil temp up. I do the same with the Mazda.

 

[demarpaint]

Depends on the type of driving, too. It take longer to warm up the car if you're tootling down the road at 35 vs on the freeway.

Yes! As well as some other factors. Ambient temperature, the engine itself, etc. My old cast iron 4.9L Ford engine takes a lot longer to "warm up" [let alone reach operating temperature] than my 3.6L Jeep does. Sump capacity, the thermostat, what the engine itself is made of, aluminum vs. cast iron, displacement, how/where it is driven, the list goes on. There are too many variables to consider.

 

[Danno]

Drove 20 minutes last weekend in my JGC Hemi. 5 minutes local streets, 15 minutes on the highway. About 70 F start up temp. The oil never hit 210F operating temp. It only made it to 188F.
So, a short trip.

 

[ABN_CBT_ENGR]

I get this all the time from clients (in my world it has nothing to do with engines but rather asset operational times for various metrics)

I have to break it down for them because there seems to be this false belief with business people that short start/stop runs with lots of slack time between them is somehow a "good thing" for a mechanical asset.

Honestly, a "short trip" is whatever you want it to be because its a dimensionless term.

Technically ( and realistically) if the term is to have any value in measuring or benchmarking anything then "short" would have to be specifically ( and exclusively in some cases) defined in terms relative to the "thing" being measured.

Then the "shortness" may have to be qualified in terms of "revolutions", "cycles" or even saturation times because there are many different and non correlated and interdependent/nondependent components and functions in an assembly such as an ICE.

What's short for one component may be nothing to another but can be damaging to another. Even the thermal cycle going from ambient to operating back to ambient can shock and stress components ( and sometimes the more wear- the greater the effect)

I personally try to avoid terms like this because when something breaks- people want to hang you with them.

 

[edyvw]

In the Subaru, oil temp definitely lags behind coolant. Once the engine is fully warm, I drive it a bit aggressively to get oil temp up. I do the same with the Mazda.

It lags in every car.

 

[buster]

Yep.

 

[Lubener]

The general rule to my knowledge was under 10 miles. However, what if your car in the summer gets up to operating temperature in a minute and you drive 4 miles.? Is that still considered a short trip? Is that considered severe service? In the winter it would be.

I am with you, ten miles regardless of season.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

When it's really cold, I can make the drive to work (12 miles) without the engine oil ever getting above 170. Anything that allows the oil to get completely up to temp is fine with me.