Quote:
Originally Posted by macwest
Being this is my first car with a oil temp gauge . I have learned a lot from it . I always warm my car up in the winter at least 30 minutes, Summer 15, and never knew just because the Temp gauge was up on normal the oil is stone cold. my oil gauge wont move until I drive it so I still have to take it easy until the oil is hot. Mac
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For me, I warm my cars (I live in Texas) for 5-10 min in cold weather. I do not find the need to wait for the oil temp to rise to 180 degrees before I drive the car in cold weather. When the engine reaches normal operating temp, the oil will still be cooler when you first drive the vehicle from cold start.
The oil inside the cylinders will flash upwards becoming warmer than the oil temp guage reads. Thus, slowly heating the oil. But the operating temp of the engine means the coolant inside the engine is rising and that heat via the coolant is returning that heat to the radiator, whereby it's warming the oil as well (provided you have a coolant cooled oil cooler).
You can tell when the oil is warm also by watching the oil pressure. As it heats, it will lower the pressure.
I do not run my engines to high rpm when the oil pressure is higher than normal operating pressure. It tells me the oil is not flowing like it normally does.....it's flowing "slower", so I do not need to run my engine at higher rpm since the oil is not flowing as it should, thereby taking the chance of causing more wear on the engine/bearing rotating assembly or just higher wear than otherwise would running at higher rpm's.