Do you let your truck warm up on those cold days before you drive off. Can you damage your engine by not letting it warm up first?

 

Your doing more damage letting it warm up before driving it. Of course you can't romp on it when it is cold, but the engine warms up faster by driving. Any time the engine is below 180 coolant temp. the wear on the engine is a lot greater than when it is above 180 deg.

 

? Ive never heard this before, can you explain why.

 

I disagree, give it a chance to warm a little, let it circulate the fluids some. I do agree that there is more wear when cold but forcing the engine to warm quicker is putting more wear than just letting it idle while getting a togo coffie

 

If you read in the owners manual it says (when 20f and above) only warm the engine up for 30 seconds then drive.

Modern engines are made up of many different metals. All tolorances and specs are designed for a specific operating temp. Thus anything Under (or over for that matter) will cause more wear and in-efficiency.

In addtion when you first start a cold modern gas engine it produces a prodigious amout of water. If you just let it sit there and idle the water ends up in the oil and other places it shouldn't. if you drive it the water gets blasted out the tail pipe.

There is more but I will keep it short for now.

Later-

 

You started out fine but finished poorly

 

So there is more ware on the engine when you take off when it is cold but it is better to warm it up by driving and not just sitting there. But if it causes more ware on your vehicle then why not just sit there and let it warm up. Two strong different opinions. I am still a little confused.

 

what??

 

So your saying you want to warm up the engine as fast as possible and driving it will warm it up faster than just sitting there. But Isn't it harder on the engine to get such high rpm's when it is cold???

 

My experience is that you should warm your truck up for no longer than 2-5 minutes. I never let mine go beyond 3 unless it's that cold out. I've never had serious problems from doing it either. But a friend who starts his cheapo 2002 Honda and lets it idle for about 30 seconds and then drives off went though an engine block because of the temp difference. Then again thats an aluminum block, aluminum heads... and they are tiny compared to that of the truck.

I know that my 4.2l has a cast iron block with aluminum heads... but I doubt it will cause any harm.

Figuring the 4.6l has a cast iron block and heads, and the 5.4l has aluminum heads and a cast iron block.

And besides, if somethings gonna go in the next 200k miles then I would hope you wouldn't owe any on the truck.

 

As long as the temperature is above zero, I usually let it idle for 1 or 2 minutes max before driving. If it's really warm out as soon as the oil pressure is stabilized I drive it. If it's below zero, to hell with it, I fire it up, pop on the heater, and go back inside for 5 to 10 minutes.

 

O.K. I think we are talking about two different things here.

1. should you warm your truck up first?

Well I guess the real answer to this is "HOW LONG" should you warm your truck up first? The manual says 30 seconds at 20f or above.

2. what causes more wear?

Well a cold engine causes more wear period. HOWEVER, if you let it sit and warm up for many minutes instead of driving it you infact will cause ADDITIONAL wear due to the fact that long cold idle times are very bad as mentioned before.

The engine WILL warm up more efficiently and with less wear if you drive it prudently shortly after start up. (Higher oil pressure, hotter cylinder temps to speed warm up, more fluids circulating, etc)

 

That's me...

My truck takes like 15 minutes before it's hot!

I notice when it's really cold out and I let it idle after it is hot, the temp gauge goes down a little bit. It shows me how well the engine cooling is.

 

My truck takes like 15 minutes before it's hot!

____

That's what heated seats are for

 

No. Wastes fuel and causes more wear and tear on the engine than necessary. Besides, it'll warm up faster going down the road.