pros vs cons of warming up the car on a cold winter morning?

[rigo_jones]

A friend of mine who is a tuner has always warned me against warming up a car by just letting it sit there and idle. He told me that when you start up a car, the computer is keeping it in a "warm up" mode and it is runnign much richer than normal, and that does not change until you drive it. So, he said if it sits there running so rich like that, its going to kill your cats and 02 sensors pretty quickly.

yes at start up the computer uses a richer map to get the engine and cat converters to normal operating temp(we all know it must be at normal operating temp. too cold=damage too hot=damage) and it will burn more gas so if you are in a hurry every morning and turn on your truck and drive it hard you will waste gas. but it will not damage your cats there will be unburned fuel in there but theres a constant flow of exhaust that get the fuel burned/out. maybe if you modified your truck/car with turbo or sc and a tuned maybe it will damage because its been modified to run richer to compensate for the extra air coming in. but remember you are in the cold map and if you hit boost it must run aether rich or ideal to compensate so if you dont let it idle you will be boosting under cold map use, then computer will read boost and dump more fuel. unless u have a wide band sensor connected to your ecu that has the capabilities of self tuning.

depending on your vehicle the computer stops using that map at certain percent of warm up like 40, 50 or 70% not necessarily 100%.

i recommend letting it warm up for at least 5 minutes in winter dont just get in, turn on, and drive. metal expands inside your engine when hot enough thats why you hear that piston slap in the mornings and it goes away. so wait for your piston rings to get warm up and expand inside to get your full compression and maximize engine performance.

 

[Narco]

i do it to let it warm up and make the inside comfortable to me. selfish i know, but i dont really care about the extra hydrocarbons or the .15 cents it cost me to let it idle for 10 minutes. my comfort is worth the extra change it cost to warm up.

 

[rigo_jones]

i do it to let it warm up and make the inside comfortable to me. selfish i know, but i dont really care about the extra hydrocarbons or the .15 cents it cost me to let it idle for 10 minutes. my comfort is worth the extra change it cost to warm up.

the ozone is only damage about 2% IIRC by automobiles the rest is from dead trees and shit.
global worming is bs just to get money out from you.


i did the same with my suburban and let it idle while i was getting ready to go to work. but since my tahoe doesnt have remote start i let it warm up about 5mn.

 

[fatnlowtahoe504]

the ozone is only damage about 2% iirc by automobiles the rest is from dead trees and shit.
Global worming is bs just to get money out from you.

x10!!!

 

[99COOP]

the ozone is only damage about 2% IIRC by automobiles the rest is from dead trees and shit.
global worming is bs just to get money out from you.

 

[tybardy]

when I fire my truck up on a cold morning, it idles about 500rpms higher then normal. I let it warm up untill the idle comes down, usually about 2-3 minutes. After that I just drive gingerly until it gets up to operating temperature.

 

[NOPROBROBB]

sweet, thanks for all the input , i think that ill just go with 5 to 7 minutes of warm up.

 

[BillBlatt18]

i normally let mine warm up for 15 mins as i live in upstate ny

 

[yukondoit]

I'll try the 5 mins warm up. The mornings here are in the teens and single digits, but I'll give it a shot tomorrow morning. But with a wife and 2 1/2 yr daughter, I perfer it to be warm inside for them.

 

[yukonjacks]

Warm your truck with pride and a smile and look at the bright side I know my remote start shuts down at 24 min. As for global warming, the only hot air is from the dumb ***** in Washington. They screwed up the HVAC/R industry stole money with BS rules. Whats next "farting"