Most people just don’t show up again if they don’t like it,
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When I was younger, before multigrade oils, we used to stick a 100 watt light bulb under the hood at night to get it started in the morning without running down the battery. There were also all sorts of block, crankcase, and oil heaters available at the parts store. there was even a dipstick heater. In cold weather, the gas had some propane added to aid starting. Further North, especially on aircraft, they drained the oil and kept it hot. So this is all old stuff.
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In this era of 5W and 0W synthetic oils unless you live somewhere where it is continuously below zero I dont think it is worth the trouble .
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This is why most motor oil is listed with 2 numbers. 10W30 is oil that behaves like 30 weight oil when warm, and 10 weight oil when cold. That means it flows well enough when cold for initial oil temperature not to be much of a concern unless it’s just ridiculously cold out. Think places like the Arctic circle, where you sometimes have to just run your engine all night to keep it from freezing solid.
I used to run block heaters here in MN back in the old days, but now that 5 and even 0w oils are available I don’t bother.
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That is what I was thinking. You would want some sort of block heater to heat the coolant as opposed to the oil.
I don’t think block heaters are necessary for gasoline engine are necessary until you get down to -25F or below. They used to be very necessary for Diesels but all my knowledge of Diesels is more than 25 years out of date.
I know they are prevalent in Europe which is puzzling to me with all the European emphasis on being green and maybe that is why they have such expensive engine heating systems.
Diesels are gross polluters when cold.
I know other places solutions to problems may seem strange to outsiders but that is only because we don’t know enough to understand at a distance.
You answered your own question. Diesels are much more prevalent in Europe than in the US.
I figured it must be to lower pollution because you don’t need anything that expensive to start something. We had ether injection buttons on our Diesel trucks back in the 70s for when you were somewhere without plug ins.
Agree! The Diesel has been very popular in Europe for many years because of the great furl economy. The current mods are emission-driven by ever-tightening emission standards.
Europe has to make a trade0ff between fuel economy and diesel smells and emissions.
Diesels I rented in France (Renault, and Peugeot) we very user-friendly and did not smell.