Posted on 01/08/2011 8:20:04 PM PST by cunning_fish
Old habits die hard, and one of the oldest — still rigorously enforced by many drivers — is that "warming up" the car for a few minutes is necessary to avoid some kind of unspecified damage.
But idling is totally unnecessary, which is why many communities have enacted ordinances against the practice.
Don't take my word about idling being ineffective, but do listen to my mechanic, Rob Maier, who runs Maier's Garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He says, "You don't really need to idle your car, because of the efficiency of modern fuel injection, which eliminated carburetors and chokes. The only reason to let the car idle at all is to get the oil circulating, but after 30 seconds that's a done deal. My truck has 150,000 miles on it, and I just throw it into gear and go."
Here are some quick facts and tips that should put the idling question to rest:
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.yahoo.com ...
idling is illegal in places? holy crap.
Can anybody from South of the (Canadian) Border speak authoritatively about block heaters?
You know the nice part about warming up your car in winter? It’s warmed up. Don’t care if it helps the engine, it helps the DRIVER, driving in an icebox sucks.
I love to let mine idle for as long as ten minutes on cold mornings. Have always done that with my vehicles and they all have lasted more than 200,000 miles. Not going to listen to some “save the Earth” greenie telling me not to idle my engine.
Places where idling is encouraged:
1.) Welfare line.
2.) Union job.
While it is mostly true that there is no need to “warm up” a car it isn’t always the case. The greenies can bite me. I know which of my vehicles can be driven cold and which can’t.
I’ll idle any damn time I please. It’s my engine and my gas.
My old Jeep used to shift badly if it wasn’t warmed up when the temperature was below 50 degrees or so. My truck now runs just fine without it, but I like warming it up for the simple reason that I don’t like fogged up windows and freezing my butt off in winter. The ecoNazis can put that one in their pipe and smoke it.
How is it any of the "community's" business?
what’s the penalty for idling?
Death by firing squad.
Amen! Heck, I live in southern Arizona, and I warm up my car in winter - for ME! To hell with the engine...
“...warming it up for the simple reason that I don’t like fogged up windows and freezing my butt off in winter. “
That’s an excellent point I hadn’t even thought of. On freezing winter mornings, if the conditions are right you will get yourself killed trying to drive off before you get heat from the engine because the windshield will ice over inside. Those of you who live up here in snow country know what I am talking about!
Confiscation of vehicle and loss of firearm privileges..
Tucsonan here (weird day huh), definitely warm that bad boy up.
One month diet of vegetable soup . . . only.
“Don’t care if it helps the engine, it helps the DRIVER, driving in an icebox sucks.”
I agree. I never even thought of warming up the engine to make IT feel comfortable.
I warmed it up to make ME feel comfortable.
I no longer worry about it, as I have no car, and live in the tropics of the Pacific.
My car makes a worrying sound when it’s cold so I keep the rpm’s down by letting it idle for about 5 minutes . Sorry to offend these green guys.
Yup. In New York state of all places, in -14 weather when I was driving for an expedite company I was woke up at 3AM by the state police and handed a ticket for running the engine in my truck for more than a few minutes. I just looked at him, the temp on the display and said “keep writing um, I am going back to sleep and I need the engine or you’ll be investigating a frozen trucker in the morning”.. he left the ticket (That i had to pay) but left me alone the rest of the night. I know he was just doing his “job” but he could just look the other way.
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