I'm sure i'm not the only one but has anyone else seen the articles floating around social media and other news outlets about warming up your car in the winter and how its bad/does more harm than good? Where i live it gets pretty cold, so i've always warmed it up for a few minutes. You can also do a quick google search and find scores of links on the controversial topic. What are your thoughts and what do you do?

 

I just wait 'til it's running smoothly and quietly before setting off. This usually takes less than a minute. The key is to drive gently until the engine's up to temperature.

 

I used to spend minutes idling my car after starting to warm it up, but after reading some articles on the internet, I've decided that it's really not necessary. Of course it's not good to drive on a completely cold engine, like right after starting it. I usually wait about a minute or so in the winter, maybe 30 seconds in the warmer seasons. After that, I get up and go. Driving lightly warms up the engine faster and more efficiently than idling. It usually reaches normal temperature by the time I've made it out of my neighborhood. Just don't rev too high until the engine is warm.

 

I let it warm up until my remote start says it's over 0 in the car �� In winter that is. Purely for the reason, it's more comfortable for me.

 

Between 30 seconds and 2 minutes is all I let it warm up for.

But I don't push the car hard until it has been driven for a distance and has completely warmed up.

Until it is completely warmed up I keep the RPMs pretty low and go through the gears slowly.

 

When it gets below about -25 I give it about 10 minutes usually. below -10 gets 5 minutes. Otherwise 2-3 minutes before I walk out the door when it's below 0.

 

if you want your car to last and be free of any powertrain mechanical problems for at least 100K miles i suggest warming up the car. every car i ever owned i have warmed up before driving it down the street and hauling azz on the freeway. and no, none of the cars i've owned were ever carburated. ask yourself this, do you wake up in the morning jump out of bed and sprint out the door ready to run a mile or two without warming up or stretching. a car is no different, there are components that would function more efficiently when the vehicle is warmed up.

 

Damn, it was 2 degrees a couple weeks ago and my truck just gave me the finger

 

When starting cold, the engine runs in high-idle for maybe 10 seconds in the summer, and 30 seconds in the winter, depending on outside temps. Then it steps down, still in a somewhat higher idle than when fully warmed up, but sounding less like a diesel at that point. I wait for that moment before driving it. And then when driving, I keep the revs below 3k for a mile or two until it comes to operating temperature.

Pretty sure that's all reasonable car-care behavior.

 

the other reason for taking it easy for the first few minutes of driving is for the rest of the drivetrain. while the engine idles, that does nothing for the gearbox or diff fluids.

so for that reason as well, i also idle until the initial cold-start idle settles to ~1000-1200 rpm (~30 seconds) and then drive gingerly for the first few kms. at that point the engine is near operating temp and the drivetrain fluids should be warming.

 

In Colorado if you leave your car while it's warming up you get a "puffing" ticket for $150. My friend just got a ticket haha. It'd be fun arguing to the cop that we can lock our cars while it's running

 

No longer necessary on modern vehicles with fuel injection
I never warm up my vehicle.
I'm in a residential area and it is a few blocks to a 50 MPH highway. That short drive at 25MPH is a long enough warmup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor

Telcoman

 

+1

I wait for the car to come down from high idle, and away I go, keeping under 3K.

I'm always running late in the morning, I can't imagine letting the car idle for 10 minutes Fortunately it doesn't get that cold here and my car is garage kept

 

I can never understand why people are more willing to trust random people on the internet than the engineers that designed the product...

 

Canucklehead, Lego and myself all said wait 30 secs in the winter for the high idle to step down, and we're all random guys on the internet.