Warming your car up in cold weather

[Diesel_Dave]

Originally Posted by p38fln

I let mine run for about 5 minutes with remote start if its below freezing. If it's below zero F I'll let it run for 15 minutes - Its really hard to drive when you can't move for the shivering
Above freezing and I'll start it with remote start as I walk towards it - It usually finishes the turbo test by the time I get to the drivers door, and I just drive away.
I have tried starting it and just driving immediately, but it puts out a huge cloud of brownish black smoke and retards the engine pretty severely for the first 15-20 seconds.

Also, in the summer time I turn the "Quiet Start" feature on - it makes it low idle if I do remote start it. In the winter I turn "Quiet Start" back off since it makes it high idle to warm up faster.

Hmm, hadn't heard that about the Ecoboost. My turbodiesel is good to go right after it fires up. Then again, I don't think I've ever tried it when it's gotten down to zero.

And as far as the shivering goes, I just wear my big winter coat, gloves, and a winter hat, since I refuse to run my heater until my engine warms up--unless the windows start fogging up and I can't take care of that by rolling the window down a crack.

[Frank Lee]

Put that remote in front of the tire and drive over it the next time you go somewhere.

[Sven7]

If it doesn't run right for the first 20 seconds I'd wait 25 seconds to let off the clutch.

Letting cars warm up is, like others say, a legacy thing. If your car made in the past 30 years doesn't run correctly right off the bat you should either experiment with letting it warm up for 30 seconds or figure out what's wrong with it.

[Gasoline Fumes]

Even my carbureted 1980 Chevy pickup is driveable in cold weather after warming up for only a minute or two. And that's without a choke.

[skyking]

I will move it as soon as the torque converter is filled up, maybe 10 seconds. even a large diesel truck can be driven conservatively while it warms up. You'll hear all sorts of horror stories and cautionary tales about cold transmission parts and things not being equalized, but the key is no boost and very little torque. I can move a loaded 18 wheeler along cold without taxing any part of the drive train, provided I'm not holding up traffic while doing so.

[5.4]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I'd fall over from shock if I actually saw it enforced!

It would follow that autostarts that allow more than 3 minutes of operation are illegal right?

Here below 41F and above 80F its perfectly legal to idle as long as you want. I don't know why everyone is trying to force their opinion and the way to do things down everyone else's throats. I see it as worth it to get into a car that's 72F for a $20 a gas in idling a winter...

[skyking]

I'm not selling anything, my problem is, my 12 valve cummins sounds like not-so-distant thunder in the carport

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by 5.4

I don't know why everyone is trying to force their opinion and the way to do things down everyone else's throats.

Nobody is forcing anything.

But if you join a fuel economy forum, you should expect that people will be discussing ways to reduce fuel consumption, not waste it idling.

There are several better ways to pre-heat your vehicle than by letting it sit idling.

If that concept gets your hackles up, you're on the wrong forum.

[Old Mechanic]

A V8 engine idling warm is wasting .5 gallons of fuel an hour. My old Insight would go 40 MPH on that same amount of fuel for an hour.

So would my bike.

13% of all the fuel consumed in the US is wasted idling.

Start it and go, you might as well cover some ground with the same fuel you are wasting right now.

Not trying to make any do anything except put money in their pockets, hopefully for a better purpose. Heck even buying Twinkies would be better.

regards
Mech

[bestclimb]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Nobody is forcing anything.

But if you join a fuel economy forum, you should expect that people will be discussing ways to reduce fuel consumption, not waste it idling.

There are several better ways to pre-heat your vehicle than by letting it sit idling.

If that concept gets your hackles up, you're on the wrong forum.

There is at least one member advocating the forcing of the issue. That gets my hackles up and I am, apparently, pretty on board with not wasting fuel.

Anyway even down to 30 below I don't bother letting the car come up to full temp before driving. I start the car, get out unplug it, scrape the windshields then get in and drive off. Once the temp gauge comes off the peg I turn the heater on. The extra minute or so of idle gets the defrost that much closer to a functional temp before I leave the low speed area of the neighborhood.