Claim: Warming up your car in cold weather can damage your engine. – IOTW Report

Claim: Warming up your car in cold weather can damage your engine.

Sunday, 25 December 2022, 16:58 BFH Uncategorized 46

Fox-

Firestone Complete Auto Care explains on its website that cars with modern fuel injection systems can be driven by simply starting the engine without the car warming up. 

The auto service company notes that idling your engine could damage it while minimizing the car’s fuel efficiency, which is harmful to the environment due to fumes emitted from the engine that pollutes the air. 

Firestone says drivers should bundle up, start their car without idling, and drive when it’s cold. Allowing your car to idle in the winter is bad for the engine, and it costs a lot of money to repair. Citing a 2009 study, Firestone notes that Americans waste $5.9 billion a year on gas while idling.

In the winter, most automakers recommend that drivers pull off gently after 30 seconds. The engine will warm faster being driven, which will allow the heat to turn on sooner while lowering your fuel costs, and reducing emissions, according to the Department of Energy.

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46 Comments on Claim: Warming up your car in cold weather can damage your engine.

  2. Baloney. Engine oil needs a short period to warm up, about one solid minute, to allow the oil to reach all the areas where oil would have left, due simply to gravity. That one minute is sufficient, if you let the engine idle. As soon as you hear the RPMs drop, that tells you it is warm enough. Has NOTHING to do with the fuel injection.

    Let me put it this way: Try and drive off in a diesel without warm-up when it is -25. Good luck.

    36

  4. I call bullshit. While yes, it may save a little fuel to just drive off, pistons need to warm up, and expand to prevent them from rocking in the cylinders, oil needs to warm up so it can flow to all the moving parts.

    25

  9. Idling won’t damage your engine. We all do it at stoplights. I’ve actually had to scrape my windows here in Phoenix twice in the last three weeks. I let the car idle with the defroster going until I could dislodge the ice with a credit card. Not much need for an ice scraper in the desert.

    15

  10. Virtue signalling.

    All these micro-efficiencies are meaningless to the individual car owner/operator. Save one thousandth of a gallon? Nothing. As noted, most vehicles on the road are not gasoline direct injection, so who are you preaching to?

    Then you get to the practical objections like wear and safety…

    17

  11. I’ve read the theory behind this. It has to do with cast iron main caps and rods contacting on crank journals. I get it, but in cold weather that cast iron will contract in both directions. I think the whole theory is a little thin. Oh and what Lowell said. It takes a good 15 minutes in sub freezing weather to see through the windshield in my diesel truck.

    15

  13. I’ve had this discussion with two different highly experienced mechanics. Their word is: Well, it depends! There are pros and cons either way.

    But the one thing both independently recommended is that the best thing you can do for your auto/truck engine to lower wear at startup regardless of the temperature is to install an auxiliary electric oil pump. Turn it on several seconds before you crank the starter, then turn it off once the engine’s running.

    Of course, I’ve been too lazy to ever do that so I’m just passing along what I have reason to believe is good advice. It makes sense to me.

    15

  14. What’s worse is those idiotic start/stop cars that shut off the engine when you stop and hold your foot on the brakes for a traffic light. That’s extra wear and tear on starter, battery, etc. to save a tiny amount of fuel. Also, the restart is in drive on an automatic transmission. Normally, these won’t start if not in neutral or park.

    19

  15. You have to be a blame fool idiot to jump in the car, start it, and take off. The moisture from your breath will fog and freeze the windshield inside, your side windows won’t roll down because they are frozen shut.
    Your wipers and blue antifreeze windshield wash will clog up with the ice frozen on the spray nozzle. If your lucky, you’ll be able to open the frozen door and stick your head out to see the road. You had better get a bungy cord to keep your door closed since the ice froze the door latch and it won’t shut again until it heats up enough. I have never seen a situation that warming an engine before driving will damage it. I spent 35 years in engine design and never thought twice about warming the engine and relieving the stress caused be excess cold. I also never bought firestone tires……..

    22

  16. Utter horse shit. Absolute hogwash. The sad part is there are people who will believe such nonsense.

    Back in the early 1960’s my cousin had a coffee can with oil soaked sawdust in it and the bottom was dented down. He put it under the transmission with a couple handfuls of sawdust/oil on the dented end and lit it on fire. Another one went under the crank case on the farm truck we were hauling a load of hay to Washington in and spent the night in a motel in 20 below Superior Mt.

    There was no way that it would shift and the engine barely turned over even after being heated over a fire for twenty minutes.

    2

  19. After reading the article and contemplating on it, I hit the remote start on my car and let it idle for 15 minutes(auto off). Not going anywhere, just wanted to be contrary.

    17

  21. FWIW:

    Tesla & other Electric shitboxes NEED to KEEP their Batteries warm & have a whole bunch of different modes to accomplish this while plugged or unplugged varying range & charging as this shitshow happens.

    In many cases the battery is used to self warm if unplugged.

    3

  24. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s if you idled a car with the choke on for a long time and it was running really rich the extra unburned fuel could accumulate in the cold catalytic converter and could possibly cause long term issues (clogging or catalyst damage due to overheating). You could also get “cylinder wash” which would lead to prematurely worn-out cylinder walls and piston rings. Nowadays, with computer controlled fuel injection the air/fuel ratio is precisely controlled even when the engine is cold so that “overly rich” issue doesn’t exist any more. Do whatever you want and ignore the greenies. I’m on my forth car with over 200k and never had any engine issues caused by “idling”.

    7

  28. Brad, that visibility problem? In mid 80s, stationed at Ramstein, living at Landstuhl, we were given VW’s version of an extra cab El Camino. NO HEATER fans to clear windshields at 20 below. Ram-air heat circulation system was standard. No movey-no defrosty. Had to scrape windshield inside and out. No wonder Germany lost the war.

    4

  29. Yes, and stuff like a Beetle 1600 you just can’t drive it until the carburettor is happy. And trying to drive it with the choke on will just befoul the plugs.

    And the first thing to do to a 34PICT-3 carb is remove the autochoke and install a hand cable. And then remove the choke plate.

    3

  31. Modern vehicles, in my experience, have a fast tickover (that is controlled by many sensors… O2 data, coolant temps sensors, block temp sensors, exhaust temps) and drops to normal tickover via the IAC.

    Then there is shit like a MB 300TD that will NEVER warm up at idle. Leave it there all day running and the oil temps barely get to 120F.

    In the carb days that was a choke/butterfly advance stepper/cam. You warmed it up until it ticked over (idled) at the correct… uhh… idle. Even then you weren’t golden. You still have to baby it until it runs correctly. Even the transmission. For instance Mercedes transmissions HATE the cold. They will buck and slam when even a little cold.

    3

  32. Alright, now the truth: Firestone is right and wrong. They recommend driving straight off after 30 seconds. But I’ve consulted with AOC and got the scoop: while, yes, you only have to wait 30 seconds, but according to AOC, you have to drive off in REVERSE for at least ten minutes, after which you can put your car in ‘drive’. There you have it.

    9

  37. @ Eric- I’m bringing a ’69 Type I back to life. 1600 dual port w/ Solex PICT 34-3 (unknown base stamp) and SVDA dizzy.
    I’ll be working on that carb right after I replace the leaking intake boots.

    1

  38. BCE 56, I’m glad you have the SVDA. That will solve most headaches right there. The 34 PICT-3 is a solid carb, too. Make sure the heat risers aren’t clogged from the exhaust, and the preheat tin is piped to the breather.

    You don’t REALLY need the thermostat in the breather. You probably can’t get that thermostat these days.

    The 34PICT-3 is an air bypass idle. Get the oil to temp, set the idle bypass, and then set the volume.

    And don’t try to reuse those metal exhaust gaskets!

    Merry Christmas!

    2

  39. Risers are clear. All tins, heater boxes, tubes, flaps, levers and cables, stock muffler intact and work properly.
    Carb actually runs OK, but vac. leak at intake boot. Should have fixed that sooner…

    1

  40. “… lowering your fuel costs, and reducing emissions, according to the Department of Energy.”

    All you need to know that it’s utter bullshit.

    Dept. of Energy is nothing but a gaggle of pinhead bureaucrats with ZERO experience at anything other than sucking ass.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

    3

  41. Firestone’s way of drumming up more business for Firestone.
    Had a Mustang that came with Firestone tires-only tire on any car I’ve ever had that completely came apart like a retread simply traveling down the road at no great speed.

    1

  43. One of my X wives blew the oil filter gasket off, in minus temps, by getting in my truck and leaping off down the road. Then locked up the engine by running it without oil. Crank shaft bearings locked the engine up. It was never quite the same.

    1

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