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

My commute is 20 minutes and 3/4 of it on the highway. If I slow down to 70mph I will get run over by everyone rushing to work.

You really are old...ain't ya....

3-6 weeks

Bias tires on the old two piece rims. On the 72 Chevy they never get round.

I dont have a timer on anything, but I really should do that.

Any given time I might have 6 or 7 outfits plugged in.

What would an average be? 1000 watts a piece?

The guy who wrote this clearly does not know what cold weather really is. When I lived in interior Alaska you couldn't even see safely out the windshield unless a diesel ran for 20 min with the high idle engaged, and it took me about 5 miles for the diesel to get warm enough to feel warm heat (not hot) coming out of the dash. Add to that the flinstone effect, and your own personal comfort in extreme cold temps, no way to operate a truck parked overnight in the cold without warming it up for good bit. Remote command starts were a blessing and block heaters, oil pan heaters, tranny pan heaters etc only insured that the truck WOULD start.

I jump in the car almost straight from the shower. If it's cold, the windshield gets frosted up, on both sides. I run out in my boxers, start the car, shower, dress, fly to work.

Same result in Saskatchewan

Hell, the hydraulics dont work until you let them warm a while.

What kind of chit oil is the OP using?

The engine analyst that is the basis for this should have more sense than that. His premise is that a cold engine is richer by the fueling curve until it warms up which is true, but he takes it too far into saying that it fuel washing the cylinders clean of the lubrication thus creating premature wear.

This would be only the case if there was an excessive amount of unburnt fuel which isn't the case otherwise the engines would be way too rich to idle properly. Plugs would foul, O2 sensors would go bad, or other things in the case of diesels way before the cylinders would prematurely wear.

The evidence that he is full of crap is exactly what people are reporting here. Hundreds of thousands of miles on engines that were routinely warmed up "improperly" according to the analyst.

Damn Sam, when did they start putting alarm clocks on dem block heaters? When my wife gets in her Jeep she is 100 yards down the driveway before the starter motor stops spinning.

This sounds like it was written by the same enviro nazis whom promote global warming. His science is just about as convincing.

Sure, a rig parked in the Phoenix sun during late July does not really need much warming before hitting the open road.

The one parked overnight at minus 20 degrees is a different story. All those dissimilar metals in the engine have different expansion coefficients.

The rods and caps fit the crank journals properly at operating temp. At minus 20, not so much. Main bearings, cam journals, valve tolerances, are all temp sensitive.

Thanks, but I will baby my engine for at least the time it takes for the windows to defrost. Fortunately, in my situation, the rig is pretty well warmed up by the time I get to the first paved road. The tach does not see two grand untill I am a mile from the house. Then I have another four mile at 35 mph.

The rig is warmed thoroughly by the time I hit I84 and 80 mph.

Well when it's -20 and you put your trans in "D" it's VERY hard on it because the fluid is heavy. Often times it will slam into gear if it's cold.

Sometimes it was a half a mile or so. Anyone who has driven in extreme cold knows the thump, and the frozen feel of the seat.

No Chit 1995 in Winnipeg we had a cold spell when at night it was -46 C inside my attached insulated garage. We had to plug in the block heaters in our vehicles to ensure they started . It was -65c with the windchill.

F

When it's sub zero, I am going to warm up that engine. Going to high RPMs to accelerate or keep up with those on the road with a cold engine is not a good thing.

That be me!

My Duramax has high idle where it actually engages the transmission and puts a load on the engine to warm up faster. It also holds the first couple of gears longer in the cold to promote warm up when driving. It feels like you are hurting the engine when you are driving like there is an egg under the pedal and the darn thing won't up shift but I suppose the engineers know what they are doing. It does warm the engine and transmission much faster when high idle is engaged in cold weather.

Exactly! "Stephen Ciatti, a mechanical engineer who specializes in combustion engines at the Argonne National Laboratory" is obviously tripping on the global warming/anti-oil KoolAid.

It is a shame that this bald-faced fraudulent scheme for forcing international taxation has infected even the once unassailable Argonne National Lab.

"When your engine is cold, the gasoline is less likely to evaporate and create the correct ratio of air and vaporized fuel for combustion." Sure. But when the fuel/air ratio is enriched to the point that it will ignite, that excess gasoline is darned well going to evaporate in the resulting 3000 degree burn of the charge.

"Even though warm air generated by the radiator will flow into the cabin after a few minutes, idling does surprisingly little to warm the actual engine." First of all, if you are feeling warm air from the radiator you are in the engine compartment not the cab! And you will get heat out of the heater long before the thermostat sends any warm water through the radiator. But more obviously, if you are getting warm air from the heater then the greater portion of the engine must be at least equally warm. Where does this frigging idiot think the warmth comes from?

"Carburetors... don't have sensors that tweak the amount of gasoline when it's cold out. As a result, you have to let older cars warm up before driving or they will stall out." Why is the bi-metallic strip that opens the choke as it absorbs heat from the engine not a "sensor that tweaks the amount of gasoline when it's cold"? And if it allows the cold engine to stall, it isn't adjusted properly!

If Stephen Ciatti is a mechanical engineer then I'm a wang dang doodle!

I live in North Pole Alaska...No Way i'm leaving the drive till my car warms about 15 minutes. My block heater starts the process about two hours before I go out to start the engine.

I start my truck early to defrost the windows. By the time they're clear, the engine is warmed up, and it's toasty inside.

Of course, it rarely gets much below the teens here, we've been at 14 but it's still early.
Dunno what the winter will be like, but I AM enjoying the heated seats that I didn't know it had when I got it.