warming up the car in the winter

Not 20 minutes, but its best its a bit warm if its real cold out and youll be putting a load to it immediately after leaving the driveway.

Its the pistons taking the biggest beating. In order to go from ambient temps to 1400F at the crown, they have to expand considerably. Because they cant grow larger than the cylinder, they are made much smaller to allow for this expansion. So when you start it up cold the pistons are knocking around a lot, banging into the walls. And if your going to go pouring the coal to it before the pistons get big, the wear on those lil guys will be out of this world.

But after a few minutes they are about there, just drive off easy and let it warm up good before you punch it.

 

i usually wait until the altenator belt stops clicking. then ease out of the subdivision.

 

Warming up in the driveway won't do any good. It needs to be run under load to get everything up to operating temp. It's better to just let it sit.

Dave

 

A 5 year old wouldnt even understand how to drive a car, but I'll try

Pistons are round inverted aluminum cup things that slide up and down inside a round hole called a cylinder. They are linked to a long piece of steel called a rod to the crankshaft. All these parts are inside the engine. The crankshaft is what makes the car go. Gasses that explode above the pistons push the pistons down, which makes the crankshaft turn, similar to how the pedals on a bicycle work when you push with your legs.

If you have a V8, your engine has 8 pistons. The 8 pistons are paired up in twos, and each of the 8 pistons has an explosion over it, in turn, every 1/4 turn of the crankshaft, so that all 8 pistons "fire", over the course of "two" full crankshaft rotations. Your tachometer tells you how fast the crankshaft is spinning, rotating. Most tachometers indicate single digits which are multiplied by 1000 to indicate crankshaft speed. 3 would indicate the crankshaft is spinning 3000 times per minute, and your pistons are going up and down their cylinders 3000 times per minute also. Think about that a minute......

When the engine is going down the highway, the tops of the pistons reach temperatures as high as 700 degrees F. (I know I said 1400 earlier, so shoot me). Anyway, aluminum expands a lot when its heated that much. So they make the pistons smaller than the hole they run up and down in (the cylinder), so when the pistons heat up, they fit properly.

Letting the pistons rattle up and down in the cylinders 3000 times per minute when they are too cold to fit properly is bad, as you can probably imagine, as well as the whole of the engine is cold as is the oil stiff. Let the engine warm up at idle a minute or so to expand the pistons, then drive off at very light load until its fully warmed up. But when its really cold, say zero or colder, I let them warm up longer. 10 minutes isnt going to hurt it, and it helps to recharge the battery if your planning to do only short trips.

Or, with these lifetime warranties, just fire it up and punch it. They'll fix it. When I was younger I spent some time driving rental cars back and forth to the airport. I was never abusive myself, but these college kids they hired were absolutely awful to those cars. Didnt matter if it was -30F, fire them up and punch it to the floor, get out of the ramp, turn right onto the frontage rd which led onto the freeway and punch it, and they would floor those cars out past 100 mph before they even hit the freeway and run them flat out all the way to the airport rd, about 2 miles away. Then right back, up to the top of the ramp, and shut them off where they would sit for a few hours or a day or a week until they got the same treatment again. They barely got warm before they shut em off. But they got those 7000 mile Pennzoil 5W30 oil changes and automatic car washes like clockwork. You couldnt give me a used rental car.

How did I do?

 

I am not an expert but not sure I agree with you Dave. If the objective is to achieve operating temp you are right. BUT, if the objective is for belts to see some use and come to temp as well as seals to be lubricated etc. I think this would be better than just sitting. Sure the transaxle won't come to temp but the engine will. If the roads don't allow driving, running them would appear to be better than just sitting.

 

My standard policy if it isn't raining, snowing or icy, and the sun is out or
it's cloudy at best, she goes FOR A DRIVE!!! 30 minutes minimum, top on
or top off... depending. My 328 gets out fairly often, even here in the PNW
in the winter.

Jedi

 

If you aren't running the engine long enough to reach full operating temperature you are better off letting the car sleep til Spring.

Anything less just results in a lot of condensed moisture in your exhaust system and oil.

 

It's really not that complicated...

You let it warm up in the driveway for a few minutes so that the engine tolerances move towards the designed operating spec - Dave's example of the piston to bore tolerance is an excellent example of this, there are many other tolerance specs w/in the engine.

Sitting in the driveway does not warm up the transaxle in any meaningful way, so that's why you then have to drive the car on the road, but you do so in a very moderate manner - try to match revs, shift before say 3,500, perhaps skip shifting into 2nd the first mile or so, that sort of thing.

So, net, you do both...let 'er warm up in the driveway for a bit, then ease her onto the road and be gentle with her until both engine and transaxle are up to temp. Both warm up periods have an obvious purpose, and skipping one, or both, is going to have an effect on engine and transaxle life over the long haul.

And as Tim says above, be sure to get the engine and transaxle up to full operating temp.

 

Speedy,
I think what you are really asking is, "is it a good idea to run the car for 20 minutes every now and then during the winter, rather than letting it sit 3 months until Spring"

If that is your question, I would give you an emphatic no. I have asked the same question to one of the top master certified Ferrari technicians in the country. His response is similar to what someone else said on this board. If you don't run the car long enough, the condensation you create at start up will not be burned off and you will do more harm than good to your engine. Similarly, your transmission will not be brought up to operating temperature either. I will throw in something else, just letting the car sit and idle forever, without running up the RPMs is going to add a lot of carbon to the valves. You either get in the car and drive for long enough to get all the temps up to speed (for me about 1/2 hour or 20-25 miles), or leave the car until you can. Personally, I put some fuel stabilizer in, disconnect the battery and put her on a battery tender, and put on the car cover until the first signs of spring, but then my roads are relentlessly salted all winter.

BTW, there are a ton of threads available on this topic. Especially in the 308 section.

 

The oil gets pretty thick when it gets cold which makes it hard to crank the engine and hard to get it warms and can hold water if you don’t get it full up to temp but the engine warms up very quickly this way so it’s best to just drain the oil out or at a minimum replace it with a nice light olive oil which also works well on the brakes.



More seriously, when I park it I like to pull the fuel pump fuss while the engine is running and let it die. Then through the winter I can crank the engine to get some oil up on all the parts with it starting or washing oil of with fuel…just to try to keep a film of oil on everything. I don’t know if it helps but it makes me feel better.

 

And some nice Modena balsamic vinegar?

 

You would think, but that stuff is full of acid so it's not a good idea unless you also add something that goes with the acid, a nice hearty red is best I think and that's got water in it so again it's best to just drain the oil right out or your car so you know you won't have any oil problems.

 

Agree that is by far best to get it up to temp. As an aside, the older Ferrari Owners Manuals say to run 1500-1800 rpm for 2 min on initial startup before driving off.

 

From what I understand, the OP is asking whether or not it is okay to let it idle in his driveway, as he does not want to drive it on the salty NY roads.

 

Your right, that is what his post said. In his scenario driving wasn't an option many times.

 

There was this guy who bought a 77 Jaguar XJS with the V-12. Started it up one morning and backed it out of the garage, then went inside to have a cup while she warmed up. Then the neighbor called to tell him he may want to look out the window. The heat from the fire melted all the solder out of the radiator and turned everything under the hood made of rubber, plastic and cloth to carbon dust. Fascinating!

 

Fire in engine = good.

Fire outside of engine = bad.

 

Do not bother to start the engine unless you are willing to take the car for a 30-60 minute drive and get all the fluids and greases up to temperature. Otherwise, just let it sit and at most attach a battery charger for a couple of hours.

 

Fortunately, I don't have the problem here. However, I've often wondered if just turning the engine over without lighting the fires would be a good idea - At least that'll get everything coated in oil occasionally - Nothing's gonna heat up, so there's no moisture/condensation issues..... (?)

We always used to spin the racing engines over and see some pressure before we turned the ignition on - Easy with a late car if you don't disable the alarm system first.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Ian

 

I have read on here that you don't want the timing belts to get a set so how do you prevent the timing belts getting a set if you don't want to run your car on salty roads. It's freezing rain/sleeting here now and the past 4 weekends it has either snowed or we had freezing rain/sleet so taking the car out in this salty soup is not happening.

 

Probably. 50 years living in minnesota, part of that in Duluth, dealing with lots of snow and temps in winter as cold as -44F.

I have never had, nor known anyone, who had much trouble leaving a car sit all winter, inside or out. Heavy and boat motors equipment sits outside all winter, it really does not hurt it....as long as you get it running in the spring.

Inside unheated storage that goes through freeze thaw cycles can be bad, it creates a lot of condensation and holds it inside, soaking into everything. A building that is occasionally heated is much worse. One spring I drained almost a gallon of water out of an engine oil pan after keeping it all winter in a (sometimes) heated garage. I pulled the pan and it was actually okay. As long as I would have got it running and changed the oil (HOT) it would have been fine.

And I wouldnt worry about the belts in that short of time, just get it out and run it hard come spring, and change that oil, you should be fine.

OTOH, you could leave it run a while and its not really going to hurt anything either.