Idling for several minutes before driving off in cold weather... why? (1 Viewer)

[BobV]

The main mechanical reason for idling the vehicle for a length of time after startup has been mentioned... "to ensure the top end of the engine is being oiled". The colder the temprature outside, the longer it takes for the oil to reach the full engine. On a warm summer day that would take on average about 30 seconds, on a cold winter day (and I mean cold, not nambypamby US cold ), that could take upwards of 5 minutes if no preheating has been done (ie. block heater, inline heater, etc). Most of the wear and tear on your engine comes during this timeframe. Start the car and drive away immediately and your car will beging to do more damage to the environment over time then letting it sit for a few seconds at idle each time you start. Driving slowly is much worse than sitting at idle, even driving slowly your RPM is probably sitting around 1500-2500rpm.

I'm no mechanic, but I do repair my own vehicle, have a few mechanics in the family and was taught since I was knee-high to a grasshopper about how to take care of a vehicle.

 

[Leila Dougan]

I find this practice completely silly. At least out here in NM. In a lot of cars I've been in, the A/C doesn't really work well unless the car is moving! The air the blows out when I'm idling is only barely cold and it would take a good 10 min to cool down the car. But if you suck it up and hop on in, after driving away it cools really quickly.

 

[Ted Lee]

from the only two people in the world i would really trust to work on my car:

http://www.cartalk.com/content/colum...August/11.html

http://www.cartalk.com/content/colum...vember/18.html side semi-related question.

i recently had my oil changed at one of those jiffy lube type places. dude came out and said there was a lot of "slude" (don't remember the exact term he used, but that's what it amounted to) sitting at the bottom of my oil pan. he recommended i "flush" the system -- at an additional charge of course -- so i told him no thanks.

just wondering if that was a good idea or not. if it matters, i have a 94 accord with about 130k on it.

 

[MarkHastings]

I was told that you're better off waiting for the engine to warm up before cranking the heat. They say the heater will warm up quicker if you wait (i.e. after the car has been running for a bit) before turning it on.

 

[Holadem]

Agreed, and same with heat. I don't get the wusses either.

--
H

 

[Lew Crippen]

Yes, and they are common in Alaska—less so in some northern states when the temp drops to -40. One would be a complete waste in NYC.

 

[Ryan Tsang]

I wonder if we can get some engineers or reps from big car companies to give us the lowdown.

I can't believe no one mentioned remote car starters yet! Here in Winterpeg we give those things for X-mas presents! That's for the biggest wussies! I admit, it's nice to climb into a warm car when it's -30C outside, but I don't do it because it's such a waste of fuel to idle for 10min.
Besides, I got seat warmer, which are so nice!!!

I'm gonna open up a can of worms here.....do synthetic oils circulate faster and offer more cold start protection than conventional oils?

 

[Yee-Ming]

Yup. Since it never ever gets cooler than 24C here, I can't say anything about really cold engines or cars, but leave a car parked in the sun all day and it turns into a sauna. When this happens to me, it's open the doors, wind down windows, wait a few moments as the hot air inside circulates out, suck it up and sit on the hot seat and get the car moving ASAP with all windows down. The breeze blowing in as you drive cools everything down so much faster than A/C could anyway, and once the worst of the heat is gone, then turn on A/C and wind windows back up.

Lew: Alaska too eh? You really are well-travelled...

 

[Lew Crippen]

I never lived there Yee Ming—just passed through a couple of times.

 

[Todd Hochard]

Under no circumstances should it ever take 5 minutes for oil to get up to the top of the valvetrain. If this is really happening, you desperately need to switch to a lighter weight oil, or get a pan heater- FAST. This amount of time with no oiling is ruinous. With 0W-20 synthetics out there now, there's really no reason to have to live with this.

Yes, synthetics do tend to flow better at low temps. One can easily see this just by pouring two 5W-30 quarts out together- one synthetic and one regular.

In a newer vehicle (pretty much anything