pros vs cons of warming up the car on a cold winter morning?
- Thread starter NOPROBROBB
- Start date
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-18 here this morning. Let is sit for 3 min. or so and then drove off slow. Only "bad" things i noticed was a harder first shift and something in my engine squeals pretty good every time I start it up. otherwise. 3 min worked pretty well
OP
OP
NOPROBROBB
Full Access Member
I ve been doing 5 minutes and using extra caution til it gets warm. Paying close attention to my driving this last week has definately made me more aware of my driving tendencies(good and bad)
badtothe bone
Full Access Member
I'm sitting here, wondering how to make a comment without getting into a pissing contest.
Back in the day, I was sent to school to work on Allison transmissions for the coal mining operator I worked for. Some of the transmissions inside of some bulldozers and loaders were so large that you could stand up inside of them.
Strip job equipment required about a 15 to 30 minute warm up before they were up to operating temperatures.
It is harder on both the engine and the transmission - to just start it up and throw it in gear and drive away. The people who irritates me the most is the idiots who jumps into a cold car and then drives like my grandma for the first 5 miles until it gets warm inside. You can hear me yelling for a country mile for them to shit or get off the pot. Those idiots drives me crazy.
Wear - is worse on a cold engine, that is just thrown into gear and driven off then it is on a engine that has been properly warmed up. Even the Nascar guys warms up their engines before they start a race.
My dirt track car, we put it up on jack stands and even warm up the transmission and the rear gear by running the engine about 2000 Rpm's for about 5 minutes before a race.
If you look in the DIC on the older vehicles such as my old '02 Avalanche you will see a engine hours meter. The oil change is determined by both the engine hours and the miles driven. Most times 3,000 miles works out to be just about right.
Most damage done to the cats are by the additives poured into the gas tank by people wanting to improve performance or clean dirty fuel injectors.
Early style 02 sensors were know to fail somewhere around about 75 - 90,000 miles. Newer style sensors - I have seen some that went 300,000 miles with no issues. The old 4 wire with the heaters built into them were the worst.
Different parts of the country requires different driving styles and different approaches as to how long and if to warm up before driving.
Cold rust belt states like New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, the New England States - I would say yes. California or Texas or Florida I would say no.
---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 AM ----------
When you warm the engine, you also warm up the fluids in the automatic transmission - which lubricates the parts and makes them last longer.
The cooler built in the tank of the radiator reservoir not only cools the fluids when they get hot - to keep them at or about the same temperature as the engine coolant, but also warms the fluids on cold mornings to get them up to operating temperatures faster.
The only time the transmission makes it's own heat is when you put a load against it - like a 7,000 lbs trailer. Even then, all you should have is about 15 more degrees then the coolant temperature. If the transmission gets any hotter than that, you need a transmission cooler.
Warming up your engine -- with ice / frost on the windows is just a good idea in my part of the country, because it is safer - if you are driving down the road with a clear field of view then to be looking out a little hole scrapped in one part of the windshield and windows like some people does.
The Defroster slot on the new Avalanche we just bought is inadequate to properly defrost the entire windshield, and when it is cold outside and you are traveling down the road, you can drive 100 miles and the outer edges of the windshield will not melt when it is cold outside. The air just doesn't travel far enough from the port to reach the outer edges of the windshield and you are better off to use the heat output of the heater to warm the cab then to try to use it to defrost the windshield.
I highly doubt if a Tahoe or Suburban or Silverado is going to have any different of a style of dashboard then the Avalanche.
So just looking at the one aspect of performance is not looking at the big picture when it comes to warming up your engine.
My question is - how much is your life worth? If you get in a crash and end up partially disabled like I am from a automobile accident 12 years ago, how will you support yourself or your family if you get seriously injured?
Me personally, I have no money coming in and the $100,000 that the insurance company gave me for a lifetime of pain and suffering is slowly being ate up by inflation and taking care of my day to day needs. Most people would go out and buy a new truck and a Harley and some other junk and in 2 years would be just as broke as before their accident and would expect the government to take care of them the rest of their lives.
My accident occurred in the rain where a tractor and trailer hit my car from behind. I was on a back country road and the driver had a lot of fog on his windshield because he and his partner was working out in the rain and then jumped into his nice warm truck and the windows fogged up. If it was on ice or snow, I might not be here today.
Back in the day, I was sent to school to work on Allison transmissions for the coal mining operator I worked for. Some of the transmissions inside of some bulldozers and loaders were so large that you could stand up inside of them.
Strip job equipment required about a 15 to 30 minute warm up before they were up to operating temperatures.
It is harder on both the engine and the transmission - to just start it up and throw it in gear and drive away. The people who irritates me the most is the idiots who jumps into a cold car and then drives like my grandma for the first 5 miles until it gets warm inside. You can hear me yelling for a country mile for them to shit or get off the pot. Those idiots drives me crazy.
Wear - is worse on a cold engine, that is just thrown into gear and driven off then it is on a engine that has been properly warmed up. Even the Nascar guys warms up their engines before they start a race.
My dirt track car, we put it up on jack stands and even warm up the transmission and the rear gear by running the engine about 2000 Rpm's for about 5 minutes before a race.
If you look in the DIC on the older vehicles such as my old '02 Avalanche you will see a engine hours meter. The oil change is determined by both the engine hours and the miles driven. Most times 3,000 miles works out to be just about right.
Most damage done to the cats are by the additives poured into the gas tank by people wanting to improve performance or clean dirty fuel injectors.
Early style 02 sensors were know to fail somewhere around about 75 - 90,000 miles. Newer style sensors - I have seen some that went 300,000 miles with no issues. The old 4 wire with the heaters built into them were the worst.
Different parts of the country requires different driving styles and different approaches as to how long and if to warm up before driving.
Cold rust belt states like New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, the New England States - I would say yes. California or Texas or Florida I would say no.
---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 AM ----------
When you warm the engine, you also warm up the fluids in the automatic transmission - which lubricates the parts and makes them last longer.
The cooler built in the tank of the radiator reservoir not only cools the fluids when they get hot - to keep them at or about the same temperature as the engine coolant, but also warms the fluids on cold mornings to get them up to operating temperatures faster.
The only time the transmission makes it's own heat is when you put a load against it - like a 7,000 lbs trailer. Even then, all you should have is about 15 more degrees then the coolant temperature. If the transmission gets any hotter than that, you need a transmission cooler.
Warming up your engine -- with ice / frost on the windows is just a good idea in my part of the country, because it is safer - if you are driving down the road with a clear field of view then to be looking out a little hole scrapped in one part of the windshield and windows like some people does.
The Defroster slot on the new Avalanche we just bought is inadequate to properly defrost the entire windshield, and when it is cold outside and you are traveling down the road, you can drive 100 miles and the outer edges of the windshield will not melt when it is cold outside. The air just doesn't travel far enough from the port to reach the outer edges of the windshield and you are better off to use the heat output of the heater to warm the cab then to try to use it to defrost the windshield.
I highly doubt if a Tahoe or Suburban or Silverado is going to have any different of a style of dashboard then the Avalanche.
So just looking at the one aspect of performance is not looking at the big picture when it comes to warming up your engine.
My question is - how much is your life worth? If you get in a crash and end up partially disabled like I am from a automobile accident 12 years ago, how will you support yourself or your family if you get seriously injured?
Me personally, I have no money coming in and the $100,000 that the insurance company gave me for a lifetime of pain and suffering is slowly being ate up by inflation and taking care of my day to day needs. Most people would go out and buy a new truck and a Harley and some other junk and in 2 years would be just as broke as before their accident and would expect the government to take care of them the rest of their lives.
My accident occurred in the rain where a tractor and trailer hit my car from behind. I was on a back country road and the driver had a lot of fog on his windshield because he and his partner was working out in the rain and then jumped into his nice warm truck and the windows fogged up. If it was on ice or snow, I might not be here today.
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very good post and I'm sorry to hear about your situation.
I think most people in this thread were wondering about the effects of driving on a cold engine vs a warm engine and what is the best way to treat our engines when it is cold outside.
I would seriously hope that people would make sure they could see out the front of their truck before driving off.
bad- heavy equipment is designed differently, is diesel (usually) and has a crap load of lubricant by comparison to a gas engine. Shoot yeah, on a CAT, you warm the sucker up. Completely different beast from a small displacement gas light duty power plant thogh though.
A race engine is also different, nascar warms up their engines. On the other hand nascar engines last mere HOURS. Most of us have more hours use in a week than a nascar engine gets in its life.
F! engines are literally seized solid until the engine reaches operating temps. They obviously get warmed up externally or else you couldn't even turn the engine over.
Here is the warm up sequence on an F1 car...
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I obviously do NOT recommend you spin your engine at 11-18k RPM to warm up, they ARE differnt.
A race engine is also different, nascar warms up their engines. On the other hand nascar engines last mere HOURS. Most of us have more hours use in a week than a nascar engine gets in its life.
F! engines are literally seized solid until the engine reaches operating temps. They obviously get warmed up externally or else you couldn't even turn the engine over.
Here is the warm up sequence on an F1 car...
[yt]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MGEqlNU30Tg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MGEqlNU30Tg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/yt]
I obviously do NOT recommend you spin your engine at 11-18k RPM to warm up, they ARE differnt.
ROBERTOcritser
Full Access Member
whats all this talk about warming up vehicles? I just get in my truck, put my gas pedal to the floor, start it up and throw it in gear and go, never lettin off the throttle. hahaha. that would be wrong on so many levels. seriously though... usually I just let it warm up for my own comfort which usually between 5-15 minutes.
OP
OP
NOPROBROBB
Full Access Member
Badtothe bone, Im sorry as well to hear about the accident, my intentions of starting this post was never to see if i could save money at the pump in exchange of endanger peoples lives but rather to prolong the life of my vehicle if at possible. If its a question between the two i would run my car down to the ground if thats what it took to be safe in the cement jungle.
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i'm all about letting it warm up first cause half the winter up here is spent in single digit temps or colder at night and letting it warm up for awhile means theres heat when i get in so i'm not as cold and it usually gets all the ice build up and/or frost off the windows so i don't have to spend more time outside scraping it off. what i've found most amusing of this thread is its mostly southern people saying just get in and drive and northern people saying let it warm up. lol. the few extra cents i spend letting it idle are worth it to me to not be frozen or as cold
