Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Warming Up Your Car in the Cold Just Harms the Engine

Chicago community auto organizer s.o.b.

I don't typically warm up my vehicles too much, but luckily I have 2 miles of deserted gravel road to get to the highway so I can baby it down the road and it's warmed up before it gets to the highway.

In really cold weather, you can warm it up all you want, the wheel bearings, steering, etc are going to be stiff and cold no matter what. Once it gets to -40 F you better be babying everything cause stuff just flat breaks in those temps.

Another one for the 'stupid fucqing advice file' that I will give the consideration it deserves.

I live on a highway. If I start it and leave immediately, I have to accelerate to 60 in 1/4 mile. That's harder on an engine than idling.
Parts are engineered to fit together at operating temp. When cold, bearings, etc. are too tight or too loose. They'll be at specs when hot.

I ain't buyin it. It warms the oil, allowing it to flow better. Call me crazy but I put the trans in neutral too so the fluid warms and moves freely before I put it in gear.

Me too, truck has 300,000 miles in it. Must have hurt it bad.

With a high quality full synthetic, just wait for the oil pressure to come up and moderately drive off.

Doing that warms the whole drivetrain, rather than having a hot engine with cold transmission.

I let it run for a couple of min's then take off

If it is an automatic, leave it in gear with the brakes on and bring it up on the converter for a few seconds. That will bring the trans temp up much quicker. We do that on our race cars because we want the driveline temps brought up to the same point each round for consistency.

How many of youse guys have block heaters set on a timer?

Same here.....I do it to have heat

Mine are all diesels.

All our vehicles come with a block heater and timer. Starts about late April and ends late October in most years.

Mine kicks on about 1AM....grin

Good point!

Yup. Comes on about 3 hours before I need to leave. Usually the coolant and oil temp are between 60 and 100 degrees.

I let diesels warm up. I figure there is a lot more cold in a diesel than there is in a gas engine and diesels operate at higher pressures. My gas engines, I start it, clean the windows of frost or snow and drive off. But the first half mile is at 15-20 mph and the next 3 miles at 40 mph or less due to the roads and speed limits.

Dale

Sam,

Italian too? I did just that when I lived in Calgary. I would unplug, start up, clear the windows and head off to work, sometimes in 4x4 for the ten miles in. Frozen chit, not snow...

My vehicles live in the garage, so they don't freeze overnight.

My wife's splendid Miata sat in the garage, rarely driven whilst up there, a thousand a year for five years. I chose a different battle.