Eight Facts About Warming Up Your Car in Winter By Jim Motavalli (Photo: Mika / Corbis) Old habits die hard, and one of the oldest — still rigorously enforced by many drivers — is that "warming up" the car for a few minutes is necessary to avoid some kind of unspecified damage. But idling is totally unnecessary, which is why many communities have enacted ordinances against the practice. Don't take my word about idling being ineffective, but do listen to my mechanic, Rob Maier, who runs Maier's Garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He says, "You don't really need to idle your car, because of the efficiency of modern fuel injection, which eliminated carburetors and chokes. The only reason to let the car idle at all is to get the oil circulating, but after 30 seconds that's a done deal. My truck has 150,000 miles on it, and I just throw it into gear and go." Here are some quick facts and tips that should put the idling question to rest: 1. Driving warms the car faster than idling If your concern is not the health of the car, but simply your own creature comforts, Bob Aldrich of the California Energy Commission points out that "idling is not actually an effective way to warm up a car — it warms up faster if you just drive it." The coming electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf, will incorporate a wonderful feature that allows the owner to use a cellphone to tell the car (which is plugged into the grid) to pre-warm or pre-cool the interior. No idling necessary. 2. Ten seconds is all you need Environmental Defense Fund, which produced the Idling Gets You Nowhere campaign, advises motorists to turn off their ignition if they're sitting stopped for more than 10 seconds. "After about 10 seconds, you waste more money running the engine than restarting it, said Andy Darrell, deputy director of the EDF Energy Program. "Switch the car off at the curb, and you'll be leaving money in your wallet and protecting the air in your community." 3. Idling hurts the car According to the Hinkle Charitable Foundation's Anti-Idling Primer, idling forces an engine "to operate in a very inefficient and gasoline-rich mode that, over time, can degrade the engine's performance and reduce mileage." The Campaign for an Idle-Free New York City points out that idling causes carbon residues to build up inside the engine, which reduces its efficiency. [ Related: Five secrets to make your car last longer and save you money. ] 4. Idling costs money Over a year of five minutes of daily idling (which causes incomplete combustion of fuel), the "Anti-Idling Primer" estimates that the operator of a V8-engine car will waste 20 gallons of gasoline, which not only produces 440 pounds of carbon dioxide but costs at least $60. 5. Idling in the garage can kill you Idling a car in a garage, even with the door open, is dangerous and exposes the driver to carbon monoxide and other noxious gases. If the garage is attached, those fumes can also enter the house. [ Related: Six surprising sources of indoor air pollution. ] 6. Block heaters beat remote starters Lori Strothard of the Waterloo Citizens Vehicle Idling Reduction Task Force in Canada says, "Remote starters can too easily cause people to warm up their cars for 5 to 15 minutes, which is generally unnecessary." A block heater, which is designed to heat the engine and can cost under $30, on a timer set to start one to two hours before driving, does the trick in very cold climates. 7. Quick errands aren't quick enough Natural Resources Canada points out that leaving your car idling while you're running into a store on an errand or going back into the house to pick up a forgotten item is another way to waste gas and pollute both your town and the planet. "Leaving your engine running is hard on your pocketbook, produces greenhouse gas emissions, and is an invitation to car thieves," the agency (PDF) says. 8. Idling is bad for your health (and your neighbor's health) According to Minneapolis' anti-idling ordinance, "Exhaust is hazardous to human health, especially children's; studies have linked air pollution to increased rates of cancer, heart and lung disease, asthma and allergies." Isabelle Silverman, who runs EDF's anti-idling campaign, says that car idling "is the second-hand smoking of the outdoors. One of the problems is that cars idle close to the curb, where pedestrians are walking. And when you have a child in a stroller, they are particularly close to the tailpipe. Studies show that children's IQ levels are lower when they live near major roads with lots of traffic." (A fresh study even links autism to freeway pollution.) Alex Scaperotta, who created an anti-idling campaign with a classmate when he was in fifth grade in Wilton, Connecticut, came up with a slogan that was used on bumper stickers and websites: "If you're stopped for more than 10, turn it off and on again." Sounds like good advice. [ Related: Five road-tested ways to pay less than $1 a gallon for gas. ]
For performance cars, it's recommended to let the car warm up before driving it hard. The best way to do this is to take it easy for the first 5 minutes to let the car warm up. (Cold engine = No VTEC lulz) For turbocharged cars, it's good to let the car idle for a few minutes after hard driving to let the car cool down. Some cars have electric oil pumps to circulate the oil after the car is shut off so idling isn't necessary.
errrm....im sorta mixed about this too... so nows...i just warm it for like a minute.. and when i drive off...i try to keep my revs low...like between 2000-3000...? and then when my engine temp is warmed up....i sort of then put my radio and go a bit faster... but im more mixed about is people have told me ya shouldnt put your heaters on if the car is ubbbber cold...so 1st thing in the mornings...so how do you actually de-mist the car...?..-huh
"10 seconds is all you need" What bull shit. Completely utter bull shit. Have this man drive my car in the winter and you'll notice the first 10 minutes is nothing like the next 10 minutes from a cold start.
if you read what he actually wrote, he says anything more than 10secs of idleing will cost more gas than if you had just turned the car off and started it back up... Truth is Kontra is pretty much right on... The article however is talking about warming up the car via sitting idle... as in, just sitting in your driveway, waiting 5mins for your car to warm up... Modern cars don't need that "warm up" anymore... just start ur car and go, ur car will warm up faster that way... Unless u have an older car still running on a carburetor, live somewhere like Siberia, or it's for safety reasons like defrosting windshields... you don't need to warm ur car up longer than 30secs...
LOL good point. All I read was "Should I warm up my car before driving?" and "10 seconds is all you need" So much for reading at 3:30 AM
Not always, it depends on what kind of car you have actually. EVEN if you have performance cars it does not necessarily mean you have to warm up your car. My GTi for example, it needs to be driven as soon as it is started as it is pointed out in the owners manual. Check your owners manual as each car is different.
you can turn your heat on and your radio on.. it's just warm air wont be vented out till the engine has warmed up a bit.... so unless you want it to blow cold air right at you than by all means turn it on right away lol The radio has nothing to do with your engine.... you can turn it on right away regardless.... and yes, i tend to keep my revs low for the first mile I drive. i usually don't go above 35MPH..
For me, I usually start the engine, let it idle for 10-30 second, drive it at 2k-3.5k rpm until the temperature reaches the middle, then I'll drive it higher rpm just for fun. This only applies to the old 96 civic or 98 integra though. For the 06 Civic, I'll let it idle for 30 second - 1 minute on a cold start, drive it between 1.7k-2.5k rpm, probably 4k max when warmed up.
with today's new cars, warming up is probably not needed....by the time you start the car, adjust mirror check your seatbelts your car is ready to drive
It never a good idea turn on stationary. It cause damage to your engine and it doesn't what car you driving. And the emission is 4 times higher when the outside temperature is low. But I think no one care about that, neither I do
dont you live in cali? lol i think this article is more directed to those wondering about warming up during winter i wait til my windshild is clearn and start driving..usually like 1 min time..i don't rev up and drive agressive either in the winter...technology in newer cars is different from the older ones but no one seems to notice. for example the 3 month 5,000km oil change rule a lot of people follow when they don't really need to for the newer cars
yes.. but it's cold in the winter still... sometime my car is completely frozen on all the windows...
Don't live in Canada then! Get away from teh snow? lolz But then it's true that idling the car is a waste of petrol, the car doesn't get warm at all, you have to drive it around to get the whole thing warmed up! but it comes to the whole problem of driving with a fogged up windscreen which you technically don't want to wipe off because it will cause glare on it in the future >.< no wins at all!
wow that is a whole lot of snow. i just warm up my car for 30 secs and drive very slowly. let the rpms smoothly go up and shift early until the engine warms up fully, then drive normally.
true that idling is a waste but I need some heat to defog my windshields... It doesn't use "that" much gas.. lol
