Should I ?

[mycroft]

My car has been run at last every couple of weeks since I owned it (5 years ish)
but since my move seven months ago from our family home of 23yrs with very good and convenient garaging (push button , door opens , drive out) its been much more difficult.
I now have the car in a tin shed with no power and I cant even get it to the mud bath that will be the drive at some stage in the future . At the moment I have to unlock the shed , manoeuvre the car round tree stumps and other sharp pointy obstacles, remove padlock and chain from metal five bar gate , open pair of wooden gates behind them , drive through . Lock car ,Lock gates, walk back down garden , through house and down a lane to the car and start her up again.
All this just makes going for a quick spin less fun .
I really want to go and start her up and just let her run for a few minutes , the battery is getting weak and I have always thought regular running is better than SORNing ( no offence if this is your chosen method , there is good arguments for both)
However as a speed six owner I know this is not recommended .

If the issue is that when running cold oil temp and pressure are not sufficient to lubricate engine components at what point is any damage done . I will be starting and running the car at tickover to get it out to the road for maybe five minutes and if I take it out and warm it up slowly , as I always do , the car will have gone through the same cold start process regardless of continuing on for a blast .
Any thoughts anybody?
Dale

[RobertoBlanco]

mycroft said:

I will be starting and running the car at tickover to get it out to the road for maybe five minutes and if I take it out and warm it up slowly , as I always do , the car will have gone through the same cold start process regardless of continuing on for a blast .
Any thoughts anybody?
Dale

To my knowledge that is the worst you can do to "warm up" any engine. The best way is always, that you immediately drive off after starting and getting some revs into the engine to support a fast supply of oil to all the lube points. When I start her up I shortly rev up to 1200-1500 to exactly do this when starting from cold.
It's the forces/pressure/loads that ruin engines, not necessarily the revs. So revving her up a little from cold is not a problem as long as you do not put high loads at the same time. On the contrary it supports fast lubrication.
(High loads would mean using torque from low down to accelerate the car.)

So my take is to (carefully) shorten the critical range of under-lubrication when the engine is started from cold. So if you let her idle for some minutes from cold you would do the opposite in my book.

Sidenote:
Since it's winter time and possibly snow is piling up on the streets and cars, soon. Same is true for letting the car idle while scraping the ice off the screens and such....And you will not get heat into the engine really fast to support de-icing, too. So lose/lose situation.

[mycroft]

In referring to "warm up" what I meant was drive straight out the garage and keeping revs below 3000rpm until 60 deg reached on parameter screen , I know some use 2500rpm or a gradual increase with rpm and temp but essentially its a careful/observant appreciation of the limits of the speed six . Also a bit of mechanical sympathy helps , winter ambient temperatures mean a bit of adjustment is required.
So having been careful in the past gave me reason to ask the question above , let it stand and the battery go flat & sort it out next year or turn it over for a few minutes - what harm could it do ?
Dale

[RobertoBlanco]

mycroft said:

In referring to "warm up" what I meant was drive straight out the garage and keeping revs below 3000rpm until 60 deg reached on parameter screen , I know some use 2500rpm or a gradual increase with rpm and temp but essentially its a careful/observant appreciation of the limits of the speed six . Also a bit of mechanical sympathy helps , winter ambient temperatures mean a bit of adjustment is required.

Ok, so my misunderstanding. You actually drive the car, not just let it idle on the driveway before shutting it off again. Sorry for that.

[monty quick]

I had this problem when I was living in a rented place for a while. I purchased a portable jump starter pack and connected it to the battery every day and recharged it every night (it isn't critical to do this every day but it certainly shouldn't be left for more than a week or so). My only warning is to make sure it is a good jumper pack. The battery with the highest volts will push volts to the lower voltage battery. However, if the battery in the jumper pack is too small the volts will drop too quickly and instead of topping up your car battery, it will actually drain it.