Warming Up Your Car in the Cold Just Harms the Engine

ZeeBabar

Warming Up Your Car in the Cold Just Harms the Engine

SouthArk370Z

"Warming up your car before driving is a leftover practice from a time when carbureted engines dominated the roads. Carburetors mix gasoline and air to make vaporized fuel to run an engine, but they 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."

I guess the author never heard of a choke.

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Chuck33079

****, this genius is back. You bought another Z already? I thought we'd have six months before you were back again.

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Chuck33079

At least madeinjapan is happy. He's not the dumbest guy in the room anymore.

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warpeacelove

Warming Up Your Car in the Cold Just Harms the Engine

*The long-held notion that you should let your car idle in the cold is only true for carbureted engines

JC-Nismo

I've always let my cars warm up even in the summertime and always will.

warpeacelove

Have you read the article and understand what the Professionals are conveying to you......

"When your engine is cold, the gasoline is less likely to evaporate and create the correct ratio of air and vaporized fuel for combustion. Engines with electronic fuel injection have sensors that compensate for the cold by pumping more gasoline into the mixture. The engine continues to run rich in this way until it heats up to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

"That's a problem because you're actually putting extra fuel into the combustion chamber to make it burn and some of it can get onto the cylinder walls," Stephen Ciatti, a mechanical engineer who specializes in combustion engines at the Argonne National Laboratory, told Business Insider. "Gasoline is an outstanding solvent and it can actually wash oil off the walls if you run it in those cold idle conditions for an extended period of time."

The life of components like piston rings and cylinder liners can be significantly reduced by gasoline washing away the lubricating oil, not to mention the extra fuel that is used while the engine runs rich. Driving your car is the fastest way to warm the engine up to 40 degrees so it switches back to a normal fuel to air ratio. 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. The best thing to do is start the car, take a minute to knock the ice off your windows, and get going."

nomodsjk

Yea i just saw this on Facebook the other day and it seems to make sense

Trips

Threads merged.

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Spooler

I had a big comment for this thread, I'll just keep it to myself.

crazy4oldcars

You know, starting your car is even worse for internal components, when all of the oil is down in the pan. Your best bet is to never start your car, then the warm-up damage never becomes an issue.

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bthomas87

Seems odd they didn't mention anything about the oil being colder and harder to pump through the block when its freezing outside. I couldn't care less about the fuel mixture. When it's below freezing outside I like to let my car warm up for about 5 mins so the oil becomes a little warmer, let it pump around the engine before applying any sort of load to it.

Rusty

I start my Power Wagon and Grand Cherokee up and let them run for 15 minutes before I jump in them. I don't like getting into cold cars. Summer time is different. Jump in and go.

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JC-Nismo

Professionals??? I just don't buy it Bro, I've been doing this since a teenager with my first car and have never had an issue due to letting my car warm up. I would never under any circumstances hop in any car @ 30 degrees outside, start the car and just drive off. So i guess all the Professionals in Nascar and NHRA who let those cars idle until operating temps are acquired fall into the same category as us as well??? Not knocking it and if you like it, I love it, but I' will always let my car warm up first.

JARblue

I always make sure the fuel is warm before I drive

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