thank you for your help. So, as far as i can surmise I should be OK if i continue to drive the vehicle. The shaking is probably not related to a wear issue but an issue related to miss fire (gas line, spark problems) which I will have checked out. The car has never died at idle. I have also been reading about “safe” cold weather driving procedure, as far as I can tell as long as I drive the car gingerly until it warms up I should avoid adding a lot of engine wear. Does all of this sound ok?