Cold start question

[strat61caster]

I stopped waiting, but I avoid the freeway until temps are at least past the "C"

Although every once and awhile I rush it, bomb up to 65 mph in 4th gear less than three minutes after starting (~once per month). Weather has a lot to do with it, coldest temp I'll see this winter is probably ~30 degrees so that definitely plays a factor for me as it's not that cold.

inb4 your rings are ruined and you'll be rebuilding before 60k and burning oil worse than a truck or rotary. I'll report back in five years.

Edit: The question in the poll is basically "should you drive while cold?", low rpm low load should be completely fine when cold, high rpm high load when cold is generally considered bad.

[DSlayerZX]

I just go in, start the car connect my phone to bluetooth, put my wallets, etc. away. and when everything is finished, my car is below 1k RPM ... then cruise slowly out of the garage, the community, and when i finally hit the high way, the car is at least a quarter up on the temperature meter.

[stugray]

If you have an external oil cooler without a thermostat you better let it warm up before revving it or you will wonder what that dark line is on the road behind you...

[Yellow13]

Pizza

[Ryuu0u]

I jump in, start my car, hook my phone up and adjust the A/C or defrosters if i need to then drive it. Some of the guys in my local motorcycle community used to debate on whether or not to let it warm up or not. Majority of us think that with modern oils you shouldn't have to sit there and warm it up. Now ringing the throttle right out of the garage may be a different story.

[Skurge]

i'm not sure the correct thing to do, all i know is i usually let it idle for about 30 seconds, until it stops misfiring, then drive slowly until i see the gauge where it should be


i know in my S2000, if you try to go above 6K when the engine isn't 100% warmed up, its like hitting a brick wall and you feel like you just broke your car, so there has to be some fact behind it

[frslee]

It's only 1-2 minutes, just wait for it.

[husker741]

WOT all day errrday.

[PSORngr]

I don't wait. Never have. *shrug*

[chrisl]

There's no need to let it idle for any time at all - you can drive it immediately. Don't drive it hard until the oil is warm though (and keep in mind that oil takes longer to heat up than coolant, so even once your coolant gauge is up to temp, the oil is still probably warming up).

[mitosis]

Start it up, wait for the O2 sensor to heat up and the engine to go into closed-loop mode (aka the RPM will drop), wait about 5 more seconds to see if it's idling smooth, gently drive off, wait for oil temp to hit about 185 F (monitoring with Torque app), drive it like I own it!


I am of the opinion that letting a modern engine idle while cold is bad for it, so I try to minimize the time I spend idling and warm the engine up by driving the car gently.

For the oil temperature, 185 F is just an arbitrary number I picked because that seems to be the first place where the oil temp "plateaus" when I look at my log charts... my oil temp curve starts out as a nearly linear constant rising trend, then it'll stay 185 for about 3 minutes before jumping up to around 200. I don't know why it does that but it's a pretty consistent pattern that I observe in my logs so I have very unscientifically concluded that 185 F must mean it's warm enough for government work.

Also, this:

Originally Posted by chrisl

keep in mind that oil takes longer to heat up than coolant, so even once your coolant gauge is up to temp, the oil is still probably warming up

In all my logs, when the coolant first hits its peak temperature and stabilizes at about 190 F, the oil has only gotten up to 150 F... and that's once the coolant is already fully warmed and the needle is pointing at the second line after C like in this picture here:



...so for all you guys saying you start driving it hard once it hits the first mark after C (I'm just assuming that's what you mean by 1/4 warmed) just know that your oil is actually still very cold at that point in time.

[thill]

I let mine warm up a little before driving (let the tach drop), and I avoid WOT until the car is warmed up. Of course it is -30 here sometimes, so pretty different than other places.

[PB86SS]

When I took delivery of the car the dealer dude who talked me through the features of the car specifically told me to wait until the tach dropped to at least 1,000 RPM from a cold start before setting off. Because race car.

[prometheus]

In all of my toyotas before it seems like on a cold start the engine sounds rough for about 15 to 30 seconds, after that the RPMs settle down and the engine starts to slowly drop more RPM until the motor warms up more and gets down to that 600-500 RPM idle. I have also noticed that with the FR-S and all of my toyotas prior that if you try to drive the car normally after a cold start it will feel like the drive train is being held back. in the FR-S I will start it up and wait for the coolant gauge to be at 1/4 (after the "C"marker) which usually takes about 3 to 5 minutes depending on outside temp. then I will pull out of the drive way and drive VERY slowly keeping RPM under 2k until the motor coolant gauge is at its normal spot ( I think 180 or 190 degrees when the thermostat opens up). My dad has owned toyotas his entire life and has passed this habit down to me, neither of us has had a engine fail but I don't really want to change my habit to find out if it will fail or not lol