Just how bad for a car is it to move it a short distance?

[Howard-]

I'm talking starting it up from cold and moving it off your driveway for instance, so the engine is running for, say, a minute?

Is it going to do it any harm if you only do it once or twice in a blue moon?

Just wondering exactly what the implications are, cos it's a bugbear of mine!

[schmalex]

With modern engines, I doubt very much that it makes any difference at all

[Puddenchucker]

Probably the worst thing it would do, is slightly shorten the life of the battery?

[C8PPO]

Aside from the wear issue, I once moved a car about 50m from cold then left it overnight - next day it wouldn't start. Had to call the AA, he started it by cutting the fuel and turning it over for a long time, and said that the start the previous day would have put excess fuel into the cylinders which then effectively flooded it. EFI/ECU-controlled car.

[P700DEE]

Very bad. If your car does not complete the choke cycle you can flood the engine and next time you try to start it will just spin Wife did it with a Focus, very common and easy to do with 4.0 V8 Jag engine , addressed on later 4.2 and 5.0 engines with additional oil lubrication to pistons.

[Gizmo!]

C8PPO said:

Aside from the wear issue, I once moved a car about 50m from cold then left it overnight - next day it wouldn't start. Had to call the AA, he started it by cutting the fuel and turning it over for a long time, and said that the start the previous day would have put excess fuel into the cylinders which then effectively flooded it. EFI/ECU-controlled car.

I had that with my old Civic VTi. The only time it refused to start ever, and it was my fault

[Howard-]

Yeah I'm aware of the flooding issue, made that mistake before that's if you literally start it for about 10 seconds. But I mean leaving it running for a bit longer so it doesn't.

Edited by Howard- on Friday 13th August 10:45

[Moog72]

P700DEE said:

Very bad. If your car does not complete the choke cycle you can flood the engine and next time you try to start it will just spin Wife did it with a Focus, very common and easy to do with 4.0 V8 Jag engine , addressed on later 4.2 and 5.0 engines with additional oil lubrication to pistons.

Interesting - this would explain the puff of smoke I get out of the back of my 4.2 XKR when I've reversed it out of the garage, switched off and re-started it sometime later.

[CaptainSlow]

C8PPO said:

Aside from the wear issue, I once moved a car about 50m from cold then left it overnight - next day it wouldn't start. Had to call the AA, he started it by cutting the fuel and turning it over for a long time, and said that the start the previous day would have put excess fuel into the cylinders which then effectively flooded it. EFI/ECU-controlled car.

+1 did this with my 1998 Astra, was moving it a couple of metres to get the garage door open. The AA had to put jump start it with the biggest battery pack I have ever seen.

[Ken Sington]

CaptainSlow said:

C8PPO said:

Aside from the wear issue, I once moved a car about 50m from cold then left it overnight - next day it wouldn't start. Had to call the AA, he started it by cutting the fuel and turning it over for a long time, and said that the start the previous day would have put excess fuel into the cylinders which then effectively flooded it. EFI/ECU-controlled car.

+1 did this with my 1998 Astra, was moving it a couple of metres to get the garage door open. The AA had to put jump start it with the biggest battery pack I have ever seen.

Had a Volvo 850T5 that would do this. It hated short moves.

[RobM77]

Problems are:

• Flooding, as mentioned above. I've never seen this on any of my cars though.

• Shortening battery life. Cranking an engine is hard work, and the battery will need time to recover. I asked the question on here a while ago as to how long a typical battery took to recover, and was quite surprised at how long it was for some example cars.

• Running the engine with cold oil. An engine with 10k miles on the clock and and 1000 starts will have more wear than an engine with 10k miles on the clock and 2000 starts. However, the wear occurs when you use the engine with cold oil (load and revs), and if you're just moving the car around the driveway the revs will be low and the engine not under much load, so I doubt it's that bad for it.

[motco]

Ken Sington said:

CaptainSlow said:

C8PPO said:

Aside from the wear issue, I once moved a car about 50m from cold then left it overnight - next day it wouldn't start. Had to call the AA, he started it by cutting the fuel and turning it over for a long time, and said that the start the previous day would have put excess fuel into the cylinders which then effectively flooded it. EFI/ECU-controlled car.

+1 did this with my 1998 Astra, was moving it a couple of metres to get the garage door open. The AA had to put jump start it with the biggest battery pack I have ever seen.

Had a Volvo 850T5 that would do this. It hated short moves.

My daughter's Volvo 850 always refuses to start if run for a very brief period previously. The relevant forum says it's to do with hydraulic tappets overfilling and holding valves open until the oil dissipates. The engine certainly spins very freely when you do try to start it. Cranking with full throttle for several 30 second bursts eventually gets it going.

[Kitchski]

Of the 44 cars i've owned, i've never had a problem related to short moves.

[jimbobsimmonds]

Ken Sington said:

CaptainSlow said:

C8PPO said:

Aside from the wear issue, I once moved a car about 50m from cold then left it overnight - next day it wouldn't start. Had to call the AA, he started it by cutting the fuel and turning it over for a long time, and said that the start the previous day would have put excess fuel into the cylinders which then effectively flooded it. EFI/ECU-controlled car.

+1 did this with my 1998 Astra, was moving it a couple of metres to get the garage door open. The AA had to put jump start it with the biggest battery pack I have ever seen.

Had a Volvo 850T5 that would do this. It hated short moves.

yea, had an S70t5 and now got the S60T5, sure always to leave it at least 20 seconds when starting... doesn't seem to effect the S60 though, and the worse I had with the S70 was just a bit of a lumpy start though...

[172ff]

This shouldn't happen.

[jimbobsimmonds]

RobM77 said:

Problems are:

• Flooding, as mentioned above. I've never seen this on any of my cars though.

• Shortening battery life. Cranking an engine is hard work, and the battery will need time to recover. I asked the question on here a while ago as to how long a typical battery took to recover, and was quite surprised at how long it was for some example cars.

• Running the engine with cold oil. An engine with 10k miles on the clock and and 1000 starts will have more wear than an engine with 10k miles on the clock and 2000 starts. However, the wear occurs when you use the engine with cold oil (load and revs), and if you're just moving the car around the driveway the revs will be low and the engine not under much load, so I doubt it's that bad for it.

on the 3rd point however how come all manufacturers reccomend you to drive easily straight away rather than waiting the engine to warm. Heard it on the grapevine it was better to have the engine running and warming faster than leaving it idling and cold...

[volumeone]

Same here... Volvo 850 and 960 used to flood if not driven for at least a couple of miles.

S60 does it as well but not as much.

My worry is just how much damage does short jounreys do to a car? Journeys where the engine just gets warm before you turn it off again for the day.

[RobM77]

jimbobsimmonds said:

RobM77 said:

Problems are:

• Flooding, as mentioned above. I've never seen this on any of my cars though.

• Shortening battery life. Cranking an engine is hard work, and the battery will need time to recover. I asked the question on here a while ago as to how long a typical battery took to recover, and was quite surprised at how long it was for some example cars.

• Running the engine with cold oil. An engine with 10k miles on the clock and and 1000 starts will have more wear than an engine with 10k miles on the clock and 2000 starts. However, the wear occurs when you use the engine with cold oil (load and revs), and if you're just moving the car around the driveway the revs will be low and the engine not under much load, so I doubt it's that bad for it.

on the 3rd point however how come all manufacturers reccomend you to drive easily straight away rather than waiting the engine to warm. Heard it on the grapevine it was better to have the engine running and warming faster than leaving it idling and cold...

Because light revs (2-3k) warm the engine up quicker, provided the revs aren't excessive and there's no load. I think it's also an emissions thing that they like to put in their owner's manuals

[NateWM]

jimbobsimmonds said:

RobM77 said:

Problems are:

• Flooding, as mentioned above. I've never seen this on any of my cars though.

• Shortening battery life. Cranking an engine is hard work, and the battery will need time to recover. I asked the question on here a while ago as to how long a typical battery took to recover, and was quite surprised at how long it was for some example cars.

• Running the engine with cold oil. An engine with 10k miles on the clock and and 1000 starts will have more wear than an engine with 10k miles on the clock and 2000 starts. However, the wear occurs when you use the engine with cold oil (load and revs), and if you're just moving the car around the driveway the revs will be low and the engine not under much load, so I doubt it's that bad for it.

on the 3rd point however how come all manufacturers reccomend you to drive easily straight away rather than waiting the engine to warm. Heard it on the grapevine it was better to have the engine running and warming faster than leaving it idling and cold...

Your right. It is always better to drive the car when cold rather than let it idle to warm up, but of course, you drive the car like an old lady and do not take the revs high nor put extra load than normal. Leaving the engine to idle for a long time, causes something called "piston wash". Have you ever seen how well petrol cleans oil and grease? Well it does the exact same thing to the bores of the pistons, washing away all the lovely greasy oil that is there to protect the piston bores. During normal driving, this doesn't happen as the pistons are moving faster, thus caking the bores in oil much faster.

I've had many numerous cars modified in the past, and a tuner who done my Cosworth strongly suggested driving it rather than letting it idle, as I used to do the same too. So sure enough, I used it for 5 years and 48k Miles, and never had a problem. It was pushing 470hp, and I used it every day in the winters starting it up and driving straight to work. It never took foot wrong.

[inman999]

jimbobsimmonds said:

RobM77 said:

Problems are:

• Flooding, as mentioned above. I've never seen this on any of my cars though.

• Shortening battery life. Cranking an engine is hard work, and the battery will need time to recover. I asked the question on here a while ago as to how long a typical battery took to recover, and was quite surprised at how long it was for some example cars.

• Running the engine with cold oil. An engine with 10k miles on the clock and and 1000 starts will have more wear than an engine with 10k miles on the clock and 2000 starts. However, the wear occurs when you use the engine with cold oil (load and revs), and if you're just moving the car around the driveway the revs will be low and the engine not under much load, so I doubt it's that bad for it.

on the 3rd point however how come all manufacturers reccomend you to drive easily straight away rather than waiting the engine to warm. Heard it on the grapevine it was better to have the engine running and warming faster than leaving it idling and cold...

Third point should be reversed surely. Fewer starts = less wear on the engine. I was always lead to believe that manufacturers suggested you drive straight away to get the cat upto operating temperature ASAP, therefore reducing emissions. As far as the engine is concerned it propably is better not to load it straight away, particularly on a sub-zero morning for example.