Is it bad to drive for short distances?

[cfusionpm]

I did it for 8 years with a tC, which ran like a champ for 77k miles. Just regular maintenance and tires over the whole lifespan. Lived <1 mile from work.

[GNS]

The occasional commute of under 1 mile will have no ill effects on your car. However, once or twice a week, take it for a 30min spin (10 min warm up, 20 min spirited driving). That will help to burn the moisture off in your crankcase. Simple...

[fistpoint]

Take a bike, screw ankle express(walking).

You car will remain ding-free for longer this way too.

[AznBRZer]

Originally Posted by fistpoint

Take a bike, screw ankle express(walking).

You car will remain ding-free for longer this way too.

QFT

[mid_life_crisis]

I'd go the long way to work just to get to enjoy the car.

[Wo6M]

Originally Posted by GNS

The occasional commute of under 1 mile will have no ill effects on your car. However, once or twice a week, take it for a 30min spin (10 min warm up, 20 min spirited driving). That will help to burn the moisture off in your crankcase. Simple...

This is exactly why its ill advised to commute short destinations .

The crankcase accumulates moister and eventually pools in the crankcase. sort distances with im proper warm up period will not allow the water vapors to escape.

if you are going to commute for destinations please advise to my recommendations:

1. 5-10 mins of leaving your home start your vehicle and allow to the engine to warm up.

2. Cars today have come such a long way . you can use the stock tem gauge as reference . once you see the needle risen about a quarter way to fully warm feel free to drive it.


You might wonder way i say a quarter way and not all the way?
Ill explain.

the cooling system is designed to obviously to always maintain coolant in the engine.
When the engine is cold the Thermostat the basically sits in between the radiator and the engine is also cold and when its cold its its closed. As the engine is running its warming up the coolant inside the block .when you see the gauge begging to move its also reference that the coolant in the engine if fully warm causing the thermostats to open allowing cool coolant to enter and hence warming up the rest of the system.

(This of course helps warms up the engine oil along with the action of are FA20 engines)

I will always advise the use a visual data stream from the OBDII but the gauge works just fine for everyday life.

any questions feel free to PM me.

Good luck, hope this helps

[Mikem53]

Originally Posted by Wo6M

This is exactly why its ill advised to commute short destinations .

The crankcase accumulates moister and eventually pools in the crankcase. sort distances with im proper warm up period will not allow the water vapors to escape.

if you are going to commute for destinations please advise to my recommendations:

1. 5-10 mins of leaving your home start your vehicle and allow to the engine to warm up.

2. Cars today have come such a long way . you can use the stock tem gauge as reference . once you see the needle risen about a quarter way to fully warm feel free to drive it.


You might wonder way i say a quarter way and not all the way?
Ill explain.

the cooling system is designed to obviously to always maintain coolant in the engine.
When the engine is cold the Thermostat the basically sits in between the radiator and the engine is also cold and when its cold its its closed. As the engine is running its warming up the coolant inside the block .when you see the gauge begging to move its also reference that the coolant in the engine if fully warm causing the thermostats to open allowing cool coolant to enter and hence warming up the rest of the system.

(This of course helps warms up the engine oil along with the action of are FA20 engines)

I will always advise the use a visual data stream from the OBDII but the gauge works just fine for everyday life.

any questions feel free to PM me.

Good luck, hope this helps

This is bad advice.. Sorry to say.. Starting the car and letting it idle for 5 to 10 minutes causes more harm than good.. Because at idle when cold the engine is running rich and the engine is not under a load and will take LONGER to warm up allowing gas to dilute the oil. You should start the car and drive within seconds which warms it up quicker. Also oil temps are slow to follow coolant temps. It's takes another 15+ minutes for oil temps to come up under load.
Just drive the car to work as you need.. Take it out a couple times a week and drive it good! Change you oil more frequently, don't worry about this shit and enjoy your car.

[whaap]

Originally Posted by Mikem53

This is bad advice.. Sorry to say.. Starting the car and letting it idle for 5 to 10 minutes causes more harm than good.. Because at idle when cold the engine is running rich and the engine is not under a load and will take LONGER to warm up allowing gas to dilute the oil. You should start the car and drive within seconds which warms it up quicker. Also oil temps are slow to follow coolant temps. It's takes another 15+ minutes for oil temps to come up under load.
Just drive the car to work as you need.. Take it out a couple times a week and drive it good! Change you oil more frequently, don't worry about this shit and enjoy your car.

This ^

[torqdork]

Originally Posted by slowbrz

I live very close to work and the driving commute will be under 1 mile. I plan to walk most of the time but want to drive on rainy or very hot days. Is this bad? Should I drive a couple miles around before going to work?

The variable here is time. One mile in SoCal traffic might take a half-hour, plenty of time for oil to reach best operating temperature.

Otherwise, I'd stick with a good full synthetic like Red Line or another premium brand in factory recommended 0W-20 weight for best cold start protection and follow the owner's manual oil change time interval if mileage is below average.

[Kayzer Soze]

He makes a valid point, but maybe needs to be explained the new features of cars.....

Back in the day, you had to drive at least 5 miles or else when you tied your horse to horizontal wooden bar in front of the saloon, they risked being hyper and running away, breaking everything in their path (picture a horse on redbull)

Now a days, despite the reference of Horse Power in your car, there arent actually horses, so you can drive 40 feet and shut off car if you want. Thank you modern technology! could you imagine how much horse feed would cost now a days!?

[Doctor Who]

Originally Posted by Kayzer Soze

He makes a valid point, but maybe needs to be explained the new features of cars.....

Back in the day, you had to drive at least 5 miles or else when you tied your horse to horizontal wooden bar in front of the saloon, they risked being hyper and running away, breaking everything in their path (picture a horse on redbull)

Now a days, despite the reference of Horse Power in your car, there arent actually horses, so you can drive 40 feet and shut off car if you want. Thank you modern technology! could you imagine how much horse feed would cost now a days!?

Lol.

[zaptorque]

wtf i dont even....

[chenshuo]

Originally Posted by supramkivtt2jz

potato

someone calling me?

[regal]

with a 1 mile commute your car will be considered sever conditions, this is because the unburnt fuel in the crankcase doesn't get warm enough to evaporate thru the pcv. Best thing you can do is change the oil often (every 4 months) to prevent the fuel left in the crankcase from dissolving the gaskets. This was a very common issue with Subaru engines requiring a complete $3k teardown with less than 30k miles for folks with very short commutes.

I would start be doing an oil analysis every month and see how bad the situation is, with this engines very tight rig seal it may be fine.

Ideally a bike, an electric vehicle, or a very small 4 cylinder the heats up fast (Scion IQ) for the commute would be perfect for your situation.