would like your openion on warming up the engine in cold weather

Almost all engine wear occurs on cold startup because it takes a moment for the oil do start fully circulating. Once the engine is running the wear stops, so basically all you need to do is drive gently for the first few minutes. It won't really hurt to leave the engine idling for a while, but it wastes fuel and doesn't really accomplish much outside of preheating the interior of the car for comfort.

JazzMan

It really doesn't even do that. Only way to get a car's insides warm is to drive it. Letting it idle for even 10 minutes barely moves the temp gauge on my Ford e-150 at those temps.

idleing does cause extra ware, an engine with no load has a lot more freedom to rattle around causing the bearings to loosten up over time

"Apkesh" wrote

It doesn't really matter. Get in the car, start it up, get back out and brush off the snow or scrape the windows...get back in and drive away. Or start it up, go back in the house and suck on your coffee and then jump in the car and drive away. What ever makes you feel better is fine.

Ian

Huh? Doesn't make sense to me. The crank is journal bearings. Load or not, they are not going to have any metal-metal contact once you have oil pressure.

As for any roller bearing, loads will always cause them to wear faster. Same for pistons & cylinders.

-Jeff Deeney-

If you want to be able to see you need to have it warm enough to start blowing hot air out the heater.

If not, when the hot air hits the cold windshield and if there is any snow or ice inside the vehicle for humidity, the inside of the windshield will instantly fog over. This can be nasty for a couple minutes until the blower can clear it.

Mike

Apkesh wrote:

If you've got enough wear for parts to "rattle around" while idling, they're going to rattle around a whole bunch more under load. Think about it.

JazzMan

True, unless you are a robot and do not require oxygen you will be breathing out moist air which seems to instantly fog up the windows if the car is cold and be a severe hazard.

I personally go with a combination of interior heater (120V) and letting the car warm up maybe 2-3 minutes before leaving.

It has been around -35 to -45 celsius in the mornings these last few days. brrr! Takes a lot longer for the car to warm up much.

I prefer to let it idle at no-load until the oil has circulated enough to get at last some thrown up on the cylinder walls - but it won't be anywhere near warmed up.

My reasoning is that when you place the driving load on the engine the demanded torque generates a side force on the cylinders (the cause of the "piston slap" when we drove clunkers way back...), so it's nice to think of them being lubricated (I hope they are!)

Years ago I used to fly small airplanes with Lycoming, low revving, air-cooled engines, most under 150 HP. IIRC, we used to let them warm up at around 1000 rpm before doing 2100 rpm "run-ups" (magneto and carb heat checks.) We never did a full power run up or take-off (2450 rpm) with a cold engine

Cheers,

Roger

Hi, My rule of thumb is to drive away easy as soon as I can after car is started. Driving warms up the car quicker than sitting idling. Tony Calgary

I fly small airplanes with old Lycoming from years ago, I was taught to idle them at 1000RPM all the time. Usually by the time you do all the post starting checks and get to the run up area the engine was warmed up. And we always did the run up at 1700RPM. Those things are a real bear to start in the cold. I think they use something like 15W50 oil. If only I could find my POH.

On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 02:11:01 GMT, Tony Hwang wrote: snip |> Years ago I used to fly small airplanes with Lycoming, low revving, |> air-cooled engines, most under 150 HP. IIRC, we used to let them warm |> up at around 1000 rpm before doing 2100 rpm "run-ups" (magneto and |> carb heat checks.) We never did a full power run up or take-off (2450 |> rpm) with a cold engine |> |> Cheers, |> |> Roger |Hi, |My rule of thumb is to drive away easy as soon as I can after car is |started. Driving warms up the car quicker than sitting idling. |Tony |Calgary

My rule of thumb is to let the rpm's come down to at least under 1,000 before driving off. In this freezing weather, that might be 20 or 30 seconds, or maybe 40 seconds, depending on the temperature.

This is *engine feedback* telling me that it is ready to be engaged to the transmission.

Lg

Hi, That is. You get into car. Start it, put on seat belt, gloves, etc. Then time to move. Today's ECU controlled fuel injected engines behave lot better than old days carb. engines. Tony

LOL!

Tell me about it. Same temps here and I have to have an ice scraper in my hand if I want to drive away in less than 5 minutes. The scraper is for the insides of the windows.

Mike

JD wrote:

warranty

At least GM doesn't do things like Toyota. GM honored the warranty on their engines. Toyota just said NOPE it's your fault that engine died with under 20K on it....

Then it turns out that the actual problem was a major design flaw....