My apology for posting frequent threads. I know it can be annoying to respond to the same poster several times. I’ll try to post less in the future. But as of now, I stumbled across this article claiming that warming up your car is detrimental to its engine’s health.
I know for a fact I can’t live without a remote start in NEW YORK; the cold is brutal and my body can’t tolerate freezing temperature. I always warm the car up before going outside and then I’m met with a warm interior.
I believe we discussed this matter before right here on CarTalk but it would take me a good while to find such topic. I hope I haven’t caused you any inconvenience by reposting this topic.
So the question is: does it really hurt the car’s engine when I warm up it using a remote start ?
If yes, is there a way I can still continue to warm up my car this way and avoid harming it?
Make threads as frequently as you like. People are always free to ignore them.
I’m not “a mechanical engineer who specializes in combustion engines” as is the guy quoted in the article. So…
But this idea of excess fuel washing down cylinder walls if you let the car warm up is, IMHO, a bunch of hooey. A cold car does need to run richer (more fuel) - that’s true. But if there’s enough excess fuel to wash down your cylinder walls, then you have other problems and probably a check engine light.
Go by the article title - “you probably don’t NEED TO warm up your car before driving it.” That’s true. And it will warm up faster if you drive it rather than just let it idle. So the richer condition for the cold engine will mellow out sooner. But some people think that you SHOULD warm up the car before driving it. You don’t need to. But if you want to, then go for it…
Where I worked a guy would go “Cut on The Vehicles” as a kindness. Crew would let their vehicles idle all day long while at the worksite. Never any noted problems.
The only things you will harm by warming-up your engine are your wallet and the environment. If you care more about your comfort for a few minutes, instead of wanting to conserve gas and preserve the environment, then feel free to warm-up the engine.
It can. But health is probably more important for you. Priorities. I’ve seen people do what you and have owned vehicles for years without any engine issues.
One thing to consider is seat warmers. While not the same as a warm heated vehicle - it really does help on those real cold days. I’m not affected by the cold as much as my wife is. She swears by here heated seats. I don’t have them in my Highlander, and I never use it when riding in her car.
+1
I really like my vehicle’s heated seats and heated steering wheel. On a cold day, they really help to keep you comfortable for a few minutes before the cabin heater is functional.
Is this your Lexus IS? If so, set the temperature control to automatic to warm the car up quickest if you haven’t done so already. Mrs JT likes having complete control of the AC system and won’t use the auto feature. We have seat heaters in both our cars. They help take the edge off for our cold leather seats, but it still takes.a while for them to heat up.
No it doesn’t hurt anything, and something else that people don’t realize is typically as you are warming the vehicle up, you are also waring up the ATF, transmissions don’t like cold fluid, so the radiator not only cools the fluids, the coolant as it heats up heats up the ATF, or some vehicles use a trans thermostat that blocks the cold ATF flow to the rad until it gets to X temp, blocking the ATF flow helps heat the ATF up also…
A cold engine will normally run rich as well as retard the ignition timing in order to warm the engine up in a matter of minutes, running an engine rich can wash the cylinders down some/more than normal operating temp causing some wear to the cylinder walls and rings, so I don’t think you will save any more trees by driving it with no warm up, with it running rich and retarded ignition timing (both consume more fuel) with much higher RPMS (driving, getting up to speed, between shifting gears) then you will just letting it warm up 5-10 minutes or until close to operating temp, not to mention the trans will work more efficiently… Now, letting it warm up until it is 80 degrees in the cabin IS wasting fuel and harming the environment somewhat, but no more then driving to work in heavy (stop and go) traffic…
Me, I start my truck up in the garage (then finish getting ready, shoes on etc), then load the fur baby in the back seat, then raise the garage door (yeah it is still broke) manually, then back out and close the garage door, that gives it a little time to warm up, cause I normally drive with the window down for the puppy…
I hate driving with a coat on, so with all my other vehicles I always let them warm up, but I also drove them very hard and I never had any issues with the engine…
My truck gets driven, most of the time, very easy due to the puppy in the back, so not as worried about driving it not fully warmed up as much…
I’ve been around running vehicles in low ventilated garages for many many years, in a shop you have multiple vehicles being started up in the cold weather while opening the door for just long enough to pull out a vehicle or one in before closing then door, don’t put the vent hose on the tail pipe unless it will be running for a period of time… So nothing new to me…, not to mention working on a vehicle with holes in the exhaust…
Now my fun car, I would raise the door and push it 1/2 out of the garage before starting it, it would choke you out… lol
But funny you say that cause when I was young I was tested at 240 IQ, last year I was retested at 60 IQ… …
If for health reasons you need to warm up your vehicle on a cold morning, then do that. It won’t hurt your engine other than using more fuel and dumping more emissions into the atmosphere.
However, this is not an article that is vetted. There is no information about the authors. A vetted article will cite the credentials of the author(s) at the end. They did quote a qualified source, but the quote may have been taken out of context. There was no link between the quote and the rest of the article.
There were some errors. Most notably that modern engines run rich until the engine reaches a certain temperature. The A/F ratio below operating temperature is reached is controlled by a fixed program that uses inputs from the MAF so the engine is leaned out as it warms up, it does not have to reach closed loop as the article implies. The article stated that the sensors did not work in a cold engine. Only the O2 sensors do not work right after start up, but the MAF still does.
Also in the carbureted days, you had a choke pull off that would lean out the mix right after start, but you had to be in the car to press the gas pedal to make that work, otherwise the engine would stall about a minute after it started.
The MAF is at the air intake. The only impact of engine heating would be the rise in ambient in the engine bay from the engine warming up- if the car is not moving. Intakes are usually designed not to ingest warm air from the engine compartment. The ECT is a more reliable means of gauging whether or not the engine is warming up and the fuel mix can be leaned out.
This gets muddied a bit when we’re no longer talking about wet intakes. Direct injection can lean out faster than a wet intake…
