Thrashing from Cold!
Discussion
I've observed that quite a lot of people jump in their car or bike that's been standing overnight/all-day in the cold, start it up, drive off and then proceed to thrash the engine hard immediately -even some fairly (very) expensive cars.
It may or may not do that much damage compared with actually starting the engine, but I've always been mindful of waiting for the coolant temperature gauge to get into the normal range (and then giving it a little longer to allow the oil to warm-up) before giving a car or bike some welly.
Am I alone?
It may or may not do that much damage compared with actually starting the engine, but I've always been mindful of waiting for the coolant temperature gauge to get into the normal range (and then giving it a little longer to allow the oil to warm-up) before giving a car or bike some welly.
Am I alone?
I do have sympathy for cars and tend to warm them up before going on a hoon. However i have been guilty of jumping in and nailing it right on the off, usually when i'm in a mood or i have somewhere to be. Does it harm the engine? Yes it probably does, but then again i dont keep cars long enough that i'd find out that i have shortened the engines life by 10k.
I've always allowed engines to warm up before booting them, not dawdling by any means, but just being a bit sympathic really... No twisted heads, buggred turbos or head gasket failures for me 
Mostly, people don't bother/care I suspect.
That was my approach until the mission was to kill off my old Avensis... all 220k miles of the darn thing, took it in exchange for a diesel Laguna I sold on to the in-laws after joking it'd never pass an MOT test... of course, the old heap would probably have survived a nuclear holocaust... 4mths as a short trip station car, from home is a steep hill and then down into town, just enough to not quite warm the engine properly, and the thermostat was gone.... So having decided there were many better alternatives for a station car, it was time to break it (childish I know), from cold it was thrashed up that hill day after day...
...did it break, did it b
ks; managed a further 15k miles without a service and being commuted to London (from the south coast) after acquiring a parking space outside my then work, the wheel bearing howl was the final straw, more crapanomics than bangernomics.
The E39 TDS which replaced it is carefully driven until properly warm!
Mostly, people don't bother/care I suspect.
That was my approach until the mission was to kill off my old Avensis... all 220k miles of the darn thing, took it in exchange for a diesel Laguna I sold on to the in-laws after joking it'd never pass an MOT test... of course, the old heap would probably have survived a nuclear holocaust... 4mths as a short trip station car, from home is a steep hill and then down into town, just enough to not quite warm the engine properly, and the thermostat was gone.... So having decided there were many better alternatives for a station car, it was time to break it (childish I know), from cold it was thrashed up that hill day after day...
...did it break, did it b
ks; managed a further 15k miles without a service and being commuted to London (from the south coast) after acquiring a parking space outside my then work, the wheel bearing howl was the final straw, more crapanomics than bangernomics.The E39 TDS which replaced it is carefully driven until properly warm!
Yes, of course modern engines are designed with it in mind, but that doesn't make it a good thing to do. Test it sometime - if you run a car right through first from stone cold, it'll be perceptibly slower than if you did it again with everything at proper operating temperature. Quite a lot slower, actually.
That should tell all you need to know about how much your engine enjoys such treatment!
That should tell all you need to know about how much your engine enjoys such treatment!
McSam said:
Yes, of course modern engines are designed with it in mind, but that doesn't make it a good thing to do. Test it sometime - if you run a car right through first from stone cold, it'll be perceptibly slower than if you did it again with everything at proper operating temperature. Quite a lot slower, actually.
That should tell all you need to know!
RubbishThat should tell all you need to know!
McSam said:
Yes, of course modern engines are designed with it in mind, but that doesn't make it a good thing to do. Test it sometime - if you run a car right through first from stone cold, it'll be perceptibly slower than if you did it again with everything at proper operating temperature. Quite a lot slower, actually.
That should tell all you need to know about how much your engine enjoys such treatment!
What have you tested this with?That should tell all you need to know about how much your engine enjoys such treatment!
RivieraBlue said:
McSam said:
Yes, of course modern engines are designed with it in mind, but that doesn't make it a good thing to do. Test it sometime - if you run a car right through first from stone cold, it'll be perceptibly slower than if you did it again with everything at proper operating temperature. Quite a lot slower, actually.
That should tell all you need to know!
RubbishThat should tell all you need to know!
NISaxoVTR said:
Not necessarily. A lot of engines suffer a bit of piston slap when they're cold like Imprezas or anything with a K-Series, caused as the piston's don't fit the bores properly until they're warmed up. Obviously the rings won't be sealing as well when cold and so will be less efficient. The thicker cold oil will also cause more drag on the moving engine components and will be harder to pump.
Yes that is feasible, but I highly doubt you'd notice any down performanceGassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff