My mechanic has advised to heat up the car for about 30min in the morning before driving to work.Can someone please advise me the best practise ?

Thank you so much

 

I think your mechanic is sniffing too uch CO2. There was an article about warming up your car and 30 minutes warming of a car was brought up. At cold weather, the car is sitting for a period of time and the gauge temperature is all the way down, you only have to warm up the car 1-2 minutes. And on the warm weather or any situation not mentioned above, just warm up your car for 30 seconds. You only need the oil to circulate in your engine. DON'T drive to hard on your car when the car is still warming up. I'm talking to the cars that are in good or average condition.

 

this is the right way, not saying the mechanic is wrong, but 30 minutes night be over doing it a little

 

I let it idle for about 1 minute to get the oil flowin' and then drive off. I'm very gentle on it after that, until I see the coolant temp guage in it's normal operating range and the tranny loses it's cold temp. notchiness. Most important thing is to get the oil flowing before you put some load on it.

 

I only let my car idle for a minute or two before i drive off. I don't go past 3k on my tach until the temp gauge is at its normal position. Cars don't need to be warmed up like they used to long ago.

 

hmm i've heard if you let the car sit and warm up for extensive period of time it can actually hurt the engine due to moisture build up... can anyone confirm that?

 

Modified by CardDealer at 3:27 PM 11/16/2006

 

NO warm up whatsoever. Besides driving is the fastest way to warm up the car anyhow, plus you don't waste gas sitting there getting 0 MPG. Kinda interesting thing tho if you get the temp gague right in the middle on a REALLY cold morning and then turn the heater oh high you can actually bring the temp back down again. I mean REALLY cold mornings. Then again I'm in Florida right now so cold isn't an issue. muhahaha.

 

Without a warmup, you will eventually hurt your car. I warm up my car until the temp guage begins to move, on 35 degree mornings it take 3-4 minutes. And I dont push it until the needle is in the middle in its normal range.

 

So what can be hurt? My Accord had 206,000 miles on it now, it had 36 when I got it and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the engine. Just curious.

 

i live in cali.. so i have no idea how cold it gets in NY where you are.. but in the cold mornings (i consider 50 and below cold) i usually start it and let it sit for about a minute or two, then back out... i dont get on the throttle much until the engine is at operating temp.. my car is fine with over 100K miles...

30 minutes seems too long....

 

ahhh... knew i'd find it somewhere about warming up extensively will hurt your car...

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=91187

EDIT: put IMG instead of URL the first time lolz


[Modified by Stony TSi, 1:20 PM 1/17/2002]