Warming up?

I'm sure some people will tell you a long time, but for a variety of reasons, studies have shown you should go as soon as the oil pressure comes up, just take it easy until the car warms up, no hard acceleration/high revs, etc.
 
I try to leave then the cold engine light goes off

if you leave before its warm when its cold out it would take longer to warm up while driving due to cold air blowing on the engine and then run richer longer and use abit more gas
 
I usually only wait 1-2 minutes, mainly because i'm looking for the cd I want to listen to. IMO it's better to take it easy and drive really slow and conservative then to have your car ideling for 15-20 minutes then flooring it. It takes forever for your car to hit normal operating temps. if its just ideling and its a waste of gas. Not to mention its only warming up your engine; not your tranny, axels and all your other moving parts.
 
atticdog said:
I try to leave then the cold engine light goes off

if you leave before its warm when its cold out it would take longer to warm up while driving due to cold air blowing on the engine and then run richer longer and use abit more gas
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What is a "cold engine light"? Also, I think studies have shown that driving warms the engine faster than idling. You want to minimize the time it takes to bring the engine to operating temperature to minimize piston ring blowby which causes condensation of combustion byproducts (water, unburned fuel, etc.) in your oil, and to get the emissions system (catalytic converter) up to (operating) temperature, if you care about emissions, that is.
 
My car tells me: When I start the cold engine it revs to about 1,200 RPM and stays there for several seconds. Then it drops back to 800-900 RPMs and I proceed.
 
bonfire said:
How long should you let your car warm up before you drive?
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Depends on how long of a drive you are taking. the crucial factor of warming up a car properly is not really getting the engine to temp. making sure the oil reaches operating temp is a more important factor. your oil may never reach the temperature it needs to burn off the condensation that forms. Running it for a while before driving will provide more driving at a higher engine temperature, allowing the moisture to burn off. if you have a short drive in very cold weather not warming up the oil enough is a bad thing. if you have a longer drive you can get on the road faster and drive slow to start out with. nothing worse than romping on a cold motor. if you really want to know if you are doing your motor harm go grab a UOA. this will tell the condition of your motor and how it is wearing. just my two cents :dance
 
Oil generally takes about 10 minutes to get up to temperature so I always drive easily until then. In terms of start up, I may leave it 30 seconds on a cold day but generally I go as soon as it;s up and running.



Ben
 
I don't think getting oil "up to temp" is nearly as important as getting oil to all moving parts before taking off. There is no reason in todays cars to wait for the car or the oil to warm up.
 
Yes . . . I too wait several minutes – I’m turbocharged. Not only does it allow oil to flow and warm, but it also gives secondary air injection enough time to prep the cat.
 
ramp said:
I don't think getting oil "up to temp" is nearly as important as getting oil to all moving parts before taking off. There is no reason in todays cars to wait for the car or the oil to warm up.
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If you read my post what I am trying to say is that you must drive far enough to bring the oil up to temp so that you burn off any condensation . in other words if you only drive two miles to work you should let the motor warm longer than if you drove 20 miles. if you do not do this you will end up with some issues down the road. if you live in a moderate climate, not as many worries. my winters get down to -10 at times. sorry if you took my advice the wrong way, did not feel that I said to wait until the oil is warmed up before taking off. people who have short driving habits are harder on oil and motors than people who are driving with longer trips. this is why I rely on UOA'S they will tell you the state of your motor on the inside.
 
flatstick said:
If you read my post what I am trying to say is that you must drive far enough to bring the oil up to temp so that you burn off any condensation . in other words if you only drive two miles to work you should let the motor warm longer than if you drove 20 miles.
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Maybe new research has shown differently, but 20+ years ago there was a book "Drive It Forever" in which the author (who was a McDonnell Douglas engineer, IIRC) quoted studies about this, and idling was absolutely the worst thing for your oil/engine (other than cold starts). So, if you are a short trip driver, warming up the engine was counter-productive, and the best thing you could do was change your oil more frequently (or combine short trips into longer ones). This book was written back at the tail end of the carburetor days, so maybe things have changed a bit with FI. The bottom line was that under certain conditions you will be unable to bring the oil to a high enough temperature to evaporate water/fuel condensates, so you must adjust your oil change intervals accordingly (which is what some of the factory oil life monitors do).
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Maybe new research has shown differently, but 20+ years ago there was a book "Drive It Forever" in which the author (who was a McDonnell Douglas engineer, IIRC) quoted studies about this, and idling was absolutely the worst thing for your oil/engine (other than cold starts). So, if you are a short trip driver, warming up the engine was counter-productive, and the best thing you could do was change your oil more frequently (or combine short trips into longer ones). This book was written back at the tail end of the carburetor days, so maybe things have changed a bit with FI. The bottom line was that under certain conditions you will be unable to bring the oil to a high enough temperature to evaporate water/fuel condensates, so you must adjust your oil change intervals accordingly (which is what some of the factory oil life monitors do).
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Well no matter what you believe as far as bringing the oil up to temp, it still falls into my main motto. use your UOA to determine your oil / filter combo , not to mention your OCI'S . how things have changed in oil and OCI'S. 20 years ago everybody said set your OCI'S to 3,000 , now we know with the quality of most dino oils out there today we can easily go to 5,000 as long as we monitor our UOA'S to tell us where we stand. 20 years ago people used to look at their oil and were like it is black it needs to be changed, as we know now color of the oil is no indication of what kind of shape it is in. the new oil monitors are good I know GM'S have had great results with matching OLM to UOA results.

guess what I was getting at is that people should not worry about warming up the motor as much as worry about the effect of your oil not getting up to temp ( which as you stated correctly may not happen all the time ) good catch ... glad to see we have some oil fanatics here as well :LOLOL
 
If I move of in my car from cold, it runs like a pain, I let mine idle for at least 1-2 mins which seems to rid it off any of the low speed rough running, when driving allow the the water temp to get to normal, plus 5-10 mins after that for the oil, before using anymore than 3000 rpm.
 
Richt said:
If I move of in my car from cold, it runs like a pain, I let mine idle for at least 1-2 mins which seems to rid it off any of the low speed rough running, when driving allow the the water temp to get to normal, plus 5-10 mins after that for the oil, before using anymore than 3000 rpm.
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You hit the nail on the head in what I was attempting to say. guess my post may have been a little vague. the bottom line is that I see too many people I work with start the car and are off and running before the last cylinder has turned :down
 
Maybe its just me, but i start my car and let it idle with my front and rear defrosters going FULL. Gets the snow/ice off and windshields clear so I don't have to go out there scraping. Also, it probably doesn't matter, but its a crossflow from me flying piston airplanes. We wouldn't dare raise the power up untill we had and Oil Temp reading OTHER than Low. So i wait till the oil temp breaks off the case, and I jump in my toasty car and GO!
 
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