Driving strategy - a question

most engine wear occurs in the first few minutes of a cold start journey. nice reason to get an electric car. or get an engine preheater. or a moped.

I try not to use use my car for very short journeys and go via a longer than necessary route if I really must use the car (long enough so the engine/oil really gets hot about 5 miles minimum)

mrcheerful

The message from snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Matei Rusu) contains these words:

Do it often enough and it won't!

It'll knacker your car up. Do oil changes every 10 000km at least. Your exhaust won't last long at all either.

Guy's right - take up bike riding at the weekend or something, and within a few weeks you'll easily be fit enough to ride 6km. It's nowt on a bike, and you can freewheel all the way home :).

Cycle, get fit and not only will your car live longer you will as well!!!!

It would reduce the wear per kilometre figure, but it won't reduce the wear that you put on your car. Why? Well, it's because the most wear is caused during those early minutes. If the wear rate is much lower after the initial, say, ten kilometres, you'll have _still_ put the donk through the first stage... so it won't make much difference in the scheme of things. You'll be showing the same engine wear at 30,000 kilometres compared to

Yes. Spot on.

Well, yes, you will; but it'll depend on how long you want to keep the car, too. Although technically it's bad for the car, there are thousands of vehicles used in this manner and they probably still last the given ten years. So if it'll manage one hundred thousand kilometres in ten years, or forty thousand kilometres in ten years, it'll still last ten years...

Hello guys. Thanks for the advices. Pretty useful and healthy, too. Though you may not believe that, I'm going to start using my bike (for as long as I can) next Monday. As I mentioned earlier, it's not the distance to work that makes the bike trip hard, but it's the 200m height I have to climb on a (truly) 15% slope. But I'd rather do that than seeing my car ruined.

Regards, Matei

Well done, and good luck! Yes, 200m is quite a lot. And it will seem awful the first few times. But you will get used to it, and should feel better too. (and just think how easy the ride home will be!)

(whereabouts are you? Welsh valleys?)

cheers, clive

Great inspiring advice from all. Glad to see people recommending alternate transport like cycling, as I do. Your car and you will really benefit I am sure. I hate to ruin my Fabia by driving it the max 1 mile to work and back, so I cycle a lot and then just do motorway miles if I can.

Tony

No, I currently live abroad. I'm located in Tampere, Finland. It's amazing to see how many hills and valleys a "flat" country has. My aforementioned Astra is actually an Opel Kadett (same thing).

Cheers.

Matei