How and how long do you warm your car up

As explained to me by a well known engine builder, the two biggest risks of damage are lack of oiling due to high viscosity when cold, and pistons slapping around inside the cylinders as they are relatively shrunken when cold.
The goal is to give the car about 30 seconds for some limited amount of heat to get into the oil, then to carefully drive the car with very limited throttle input, low RPMs until the oil reaches near its operating temp. You want to minimize the time that the pistons are slapping around loosely and that's why he specifically advised against letting it warm up at idle for 5-10 mins. This info pertained to performance-oriented street cars. Track cars may have different warmup procedures and requirements.

 

No reason to think it is being lugged just because it is at 2000 rpm. Lugging is a combination of power being developed and load. A motor can be lugged at 4000.

 

So driving around with a cold motor, 2000 RPM max, which I would think is developing power under a load, is OK?

 

I found the 458 warms up faster then any other car I own, I thought it must have an oil warmer when it's cold but that could be complete nonsense

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Pretty much what I do, too. The key is that you want to drive it not just idle it because you need to warm up the transmission fluids and get the lube circulating in the transaxle and shifting components as well. There is a lot of oil in the dry sump and you want to be sure it’s hot, not just the coolant, before you push the car at all.


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I have been told its not the engine oil it's the gearbox that tends to be cold but, there is not temperature sensor to tell us what's going on

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Both will be cold. If you use a good synthetic lube in both, they should flow fine even when cold, but don’t push it until everything warms up. There is a (infamous) heat exchanger that heats up the transmission fluid when the coolant gets warm, and then keeps the fluid from overheating.


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But how do we know when transmission fluid is warm, engine warms up so quickly and I hold back for a while but, if the transmission fluid is anything like my 991s engine oil needs 6 miles or so to show warm, is engine oil temperature a god indicator of transmission fluid to? I just use what ferrari puts in, no idea if this is any good

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360 takes a long time to warm up, large engine oil qty

start and drive immediately, but low rpm an low load, maybe 5 minutes later the heat needle will begin to climb, then step on it hard and don't lift for anyone or anything