5 Minutes of Terror? The TRUTH About Cold Start Wear (and How NOT to Blow Your Motor!)

Easy start engine check tires no damage body turn signals work properly seat check u cellphone wait a minute to look a good tuner in radio and later drive😊😊 check u fluids every two days watch under u Vehicle for leaks

In morning is better to drive in sport mode… due to the cleaner dpf

With diesel at winter i wait one minute in summer half minute. When is car on hot sun in summer then i wait 3 sec. Not any lamp at 300k

For long journeys: I'll let it idle until it goes less than 1K RPM, then drive the car gently just a tad more than 2K RPM for around 10 minutes, then drive normally onwards.

Then for cooling down: I'll wait until one of the auxiliary fans stop.

My car stays noisy for the first 30 seconds or so till the oil has circulated.
If you can avoid this you would have reduced wear.

You can get a 50~90% reduction in wear just by bonding a lubricant to the metal i.e. Lubricant is always present.
:-)

revving your car is a sure sign you are compensating for something

When it’s super cold, I get hot steaming water and pour it over my engine so it will warm up faster

After I start up my car , I wait until the RPMs drop to the lowest , regular level before driving off . I expect by this time all oil has circulated throughout the engine .

All this speculation about warmup and stretching is nonsense. All parts expand when heating up. Steel expands roughly 4 times faster than aluminium, so consequently, aluminium engine block is under more stresswhen hot than when cold and entire seemingly scientific theory falls apart because of lack of basic knowledge in physics.

I love your phrase, “mechanical sympathy”! Really, it is just common sense in the way you treat your car. Thanks for explaining the whys and wherefores.

I wait for the rev meter to go to 8-900 rpm range lol

There is no explosion in engine, there is burning of fuel air mixture. If you have explosion , engine knocking is happening, and engine controller changes ignition point.

I would do all these romantic things to my weekend car but in the real life where everything is not perfect, the daily beater has to take it.

You probably won't see it with your naked eye😄😄

I start the engine , reverse out of my garage, get out, close and lock the door, takes maybe 2 mins, then another minute down my long driveway to a minor road, then another 2mins to reach an A road, by that time I haven't passed 40 mph, then I drive steady for the next 5 miles until the road opens up and I'm at a steady 60mph or so. Never had an issue driving like this.

I prefer to warm up...(winter time)

Start your engine, count to ten slowly, then drive smoothly for a minute, not aggressively. Then drive anyway you want. If it is very cold out, start your engine, count to 30, then drive smoothly for a minute or two, not aggressively. Then drive anyway you want. This is of course when you change your oil regularly. Fresh oil is the best oil. That's it folks! It's really simple.

Frost conditions yes warm up. Australian conditions in the north. Just drive it. Gently.

Gearbox needs to warm up with engine. Automatics need to shift to warm up.

5 to 10 seconds??? ... i leave running 2 to 3 minutes when temps are below 0*F before take0FF

Now, there are vehicles that turn off by themselves, go to zero oil pressure, and turn back on by themselves, at a traffic signal. It is the most stupid design flaw ever.

what is a short trip? And what conditions? I've recently moved from an old petrol to an old diesel (turbocharged golf) and I don't turn on the ignition until the glowplugs tell tale clears. I notice that even after a mile trip to the shops, the car has no trouble starting. When starting it up on a frosty day that's when I notice it chugs and smokes a bit.

good advice

K20 does a warm up cycle for 2 mins and is monitored on the coolant temperature and oil temp. Soon as the revs drop she's ready for light throttle driving.

Thank you, captain obvious!

This is by far the palest individual I think I've ever seen in my life. Maybe go the beach, or the rooftop yeah. Catch some sun...

The person in the video started the argument.....
To save your enging - just dont start your car!!

It has to warm up enough to clear the windshield with warm air, otherwise can't see. Takes about 10 minutes of idle running.

I typically give my truck the amount of time it takes to put my seat belt on. Maybe a little longer if my window is frozen over. When engine oil is cold, it bypasses inside the oil filter, letting your engine run with unfiltered oil. The idea is to get engine oil temperature up as fast as possible. Sitting and idling does not do this. I monitor my engine oil temperature regularly. Idle off cold start it takes 10-15 minutes before it even begins to climb. If i drive immediately, the oil temperature will begin to rise within a couple minutes. 30 seconds to a minute is adequate, then carry on your merry way.

Some engines get killed very fast if you let them idle after a cold start. Mercedes commonrail diesels for example. You have to start them and drive off at once. Letting modern engines idle when they are cold is very, very bad for them.

I have two cars, both German but different animals and different cold start idles;

E60 550i V8 starts around 2000rpms and drops to 1000rpms within 35 seconds and its good to go and, 2 minutes later that v8 gives you a wooden stove heat😂.

GLI 2.0T starts around 2200rpms and it takes more than a minute before the rpms drop to 1000, if you try drive it off right away it will not even shift properly but that might be due to DSG transmission.

Another reason to abandon ICE for EVs.

I operated a few golf courses equipped with commercial mowing and tractor equipment, mostly diesel powered. Usually to start this equipment the operator has to press and hold down the low oil safety pressure bypass button to allow the engines to start, and hold the bypass in until oil pressure was attained 6 seconds or so. My mechanic recommended just cranking the engines for several seconds to circulate oil before starting, and then start by the holding in the bypass safety. Then the engines once started almost had instant oil pressure.
I hope this was the correct thing to do. This mechanic was excellent and I never lost an engine under his watch.😊

Only downside to this is having all the hatchback hotboys up my arse on the way to work cause I'm driving the silly type-r conservatively. Luckily the Halford's gang only keep a car for 2 month before it ends up on facebook part-out, or magically becomes a Cat-D 😅

When I start my new Subaru, it idles near 2000rpm for a few minutes until the engine warms up a bit.

fuel dont explode in a engine, it burns

Lol, i oft forget how much time has passed, so my car warms up often for at least 15 minutes, if not 20 or more... I also leave the car for a few minutes to ``digest`` the heat on idle after arriving to a destination... The engines in my cars always perform nicely, and while i do suffer some problems from time to time, it`s just the usual jazz of replacement parts or washing out the intake/egr/cat in general and dpf too on diesels... Not once have i drained my oil and found any real sparkle in it, just dark shell rotella or rimula as we have it known in europe... The best oil i ever used, and by far cheaper than most snake oils like castrol and such... Smells much like good old Mobil 10-40 oils from back in the day, but it does sublime work... And yeah, it does affect the fuel usage positively... I would say that it`s due to the oil`s ability to form a seal and reduce blowby, but that is just my speculation... I use it in factory stated viscosity depending on the car, but regardless of the engine, it works amazingly... I know that this seems like a plug, but it`s just my enthusiasm for a damn good lubricant... Tho honestly, even if it did not offset the fuel usage by a few % in my favor, i would be using it, it`s just a great oil for any engine in my experience, from 2013 audi v8 4.2 turbodiesel to i4 merc turbo from 2008 to first gen a class 1.9 petrol natty, they all love it and perform better since i switched to rimula a few years ago... The 1.9 petrol natty doesn`t even defile the oil that much, it`s more of a translucent brown than dark brown chocolate that you get from a diesel with a turbo...

Edit-
The only thing i recommend more than using rotella/rimula and warming up your engine is getting an engine block heater or even an oil heater in tandem with the coolant block heater... That will do any engine a favor like nothing else in conjunction with good oil...
Keep in mind that i don`t use my diesels in winter all that much unless it`s a warm day, so that greatly offsets the engine fouling from regular diesel idle conditions... Petrols get to full operating temps in like minutes, so they don`t foul themselves or the exhaust componentry much by just sitting a bit... And the 4.2 is no different despite being a diesel... That engine is at 80C in minutes from startup on idle...

What is the impact of modern mild hybrid systems on engines. There are lots of start stops on these engines in town driving.

Also I would like to add, it's absolutely crucial to use the correct engine oil, especially in the winter and change it earlier than recommended by the manufacturer. I live in the central Russia where the temperature gets as low as -40 sometimes. I always change my oil at every 5k miles. We also use webasto autonomous systems and plug in 240v equipment to warm up the engine in the extreme temperatures.

I have been hearing lots of feedback and read a lot about engines. I own a Golf mk7 1.6 TDI. The max RPM is 6000.

I use synthetic 5 w 30 oil. My car won't show the oil temperature until it passes 45 degrees.

Can you please tell me out of 6000 RPM, what is the max I can go up to when driving my car? Also, tell me the max RPMs I can go to while it starts to warm up. I really need to know this!

Great video! On my car I have installed diesel coolant heater and no more cold starts! No more scraping the ice of the windows and freezing inside car. It took me a 3 days to install the heater together with coolant flush but man what a beauty! Now when I need to drive I just press on the button on the remote and I wait 15-30 min depending of outside winter temperature and all the ice melts from a windows, engine is preheated to operating temperature and it's nice and warm inside the car. Best investment ever let me tell you! 😊

Wait for high idle on cold start to drop and when it settles (usually around 1000RPM), the car is ready to be driven. Simple. That is usually 30 seconds or more depending on how cold it is out. That's what I go by before I load my engine. As for driving warm up, I would say keep it limited to about 1/4 throttle and below 3000RPM for your average car engine for the first 10-15 minutes depending on driving conditions. I know a guy with a Honda Accord that would get in, start the car and immediately start driving. Years of this treatment led the the car sounding worse and worse. Lots of clicking and rattling. I'm convinced the only reason it still worked at all was because it was a Honda engine. Still, even great engines are guaranteed to eventually fail. It was running, but it was running very poorly. This was all due to poor cold-start hygiene.

One interesting note is regarding hybrids, or at least, Toyota hybrids. Toyota has the hybrid system programmed to prioritize the electric motors heavily when the engine first fires up. People who drive hybrids like this may have noticed in scenarios where your cold start occurs during initial acceleration that the hybrid battery drains unusually fast, which indicates the hybrid system giving more power to the electric motors to "unload" the gas engine while engine oil circulates on start-up. This is actually pretty cool because hybrids can actually protect themselves from user error whereas normal ICE cars are at the mercy of their driver. I suppose the one piece of advice for hybrid cold-starting is try to get the engine on before you begin driving and if you do find yourself in a scenario where you will be mid-acceleration on cold start, try to do so only with your hybrid battery fully charged. If this can be avoided though, it should be.

I'm surprised the greenies haven't gone after car companies to ban remote start feature. People with newer cars can start it inside their home or by an app on the phone to "warm" up the cabin while they get ready for a drive. Double edge sword IMO. Worst thing for car is to start it and try to suck any heat off engine while idling in temps in sub freezing range. Forget that on a diesel, you just destroy the thing producing little waste heat to heat cabin.

thats why i love driving sub 1000$ cars in the winter. i get in my diesel 1.9tdi and redline it at -20c so it warms up faster at the redlights. did this for a month straight, goin to work every day, engine has 400km on it, still runs like a champ and pulls… like a 1.9tdi

I think it would be cool to have an electric bypass oil pump for pre-starting. It can shoot oil through a check valve ahead of the output side if the engine oil pump

This sucks for me when I have to start my car in -35c weather.......

All of my life in very cold weather I have always allowed my engines to fast smooth idle for 20 seconds or so before doing anything. And then drive off in a lower gear whilst not putting pressure on the motor until a mile or so.

230k miles on a M57 diesel. Original turbo. Mpg matches factory spec. Get in and go gently until hot. Floor it now again when hot. Change oil annually. Can't go wrong.
Only idles for a minute or two when I have to scrape the windscreen.

I think this should be as much a warning to all those who routinely use a car for very short journeys. The engine will spend its entire life in the warm up phase, polluting, and shredding itself slowly. Walk or get a bike, and improve your own health, the health of everyone around you, and your car's health.

On some engines, you can see the cams trough the oil cap, and in the first seconds after turning engine on, there's almost no oil on the cams.A strong indicator that you should not drive in the first minute or so.