Just wait for the idle to come down to about 1000, then i slip it in gear, and go easy for the first bit. You can pretty much tell when the motor is 'more' warmed up by the sound of it.
Mind you i don't drive the crap out of it even when at full operating temp.

What would be more interesting to see is if people who choose to idle for a couple mins, vs people who idle for 5, vs people like me who idle for about 20 seconds, we should all check our 'digital' thermometers via the odometer and see what your operating temp is say, within 5 mins of startup.

Any volunteers?

Bambino

 

when I got my Superduty I asked the dealer about how long? Was told wait until motor idles down then drive easy for 5 min.

 

I just turn it on, let it idle down and I am off to the races (well not really) but I do leave as soon as it idles down.What I don't get is what good would it do to let it idle for more than 30 secs or so.How inneffiecient do you guys think our lubrication system is?
Got 106,000 miles out of an 87 chryser lebaron turbo coupe, before I traded it in (it still ran perfect).
Got 145,000 out of of an 83 toyota truck with no problems (until my radiatior kicked the bucket and the wife blew the headgasket from overheating it- I told her not to drive it-anyway when I pulled the head off, everything looked like new- no visible wear)
Got 136,000 out of an 89 Chevy berreta gt before I traded it off (I must admit , the auto tranny was on its way out) on my 98 f150.
bottm line , I think that a person will get at least 100,000 (and probably more) miles out of your motor regardless of how long you let it warm up , as long as you don't go ripping down the road at mach 10 until it has reached normal operating temp.

 

Don't know if it hurts it or not, about 10 seconds and I am outta there, I am easy on it until it comes up to normal temperature, though. I read somewhere that the best way to warm a vehicle up is to drive a short distance slowly.

 

 

I keep mine in a 60 degree garage; take the slow route to work, about 40 mph then the last half of the ride is 55-65 mph. Coming home from the city after work is slow for 10 minutes before getting out on the main highway. I work in Buffalo, NY, today will be 65 DEGREES! Who needs to warms-up a truck here for the Buffalo winter??????

 

Lightningcrashz claims the average person will get 100,000 and probably more without a warm up. Well I am at 104,000 and leak or burn 0% oil between 3,000 mile oil changes and am expecting to get twice that out of my truck before I get a rebuild. I'm considering a superchip before the years out!
I'll keep warming her up!

 

It is clear to me that we all love our ford truck. I guess we will all do what we think is best in our own situation. Just remember that it is a peice of machinery, it doesn't have feelings, it's not going to get mad at you if you mess up. But hey, if it makes you feel better, warm the thing up. It is rare these days not to get 100,000 miles on a maintaned vehicle no matter what the make is.

 

Sounds to me like no one is going to change thier ways, so there is no need to stress. It is up to the individual owners opinion.

For those who don't warm up, you'll like this one. On Coast Guard bouy tenders, warm up time for the main engines is idle for 1 hour (generator for 15 minutes)! That is with engine heaters. So my 5 or less minutes doesn't bother me.

 

OK I live in the great white north of Minnesota. (Hi Gopher!) I think that Gopher and Lightningrod are on the right track. 5 minute warmups are overkill (just like 3M mile oil changes) and can actually HURT your motor because it takes longer to warm up. The secret is a 5W or 0W oil that flows quickly on start-up. (Synthetic is even better if you are so inclined.) Start it up, give it time for the idle to settle (as Gopher described), drive with light loads and low rpm, and gradually increase load and rpm as it warms. I've done this for years in extremely cold weather with all kinds and brands of vehicles. Never had a problem or an engine that used oil. Kept one for 250,000 miles and it still ran great and consumed no oil. This approach is not only the best for your engine but also reduces pollution and energy consumption. Just use common sense on engine loading.

 

I'd volumteer Babmbino but my '97 lives back in the stone ages with the analog odometer!

Obviously, we've got two different takes on what works. If anyone wants to play the mileage game, I'm at 140,000 miles (I know I need to update my sig), and I don't use, burn, or leak a drop of oil between oil changes. I'll stick to what's worked so far...just like CDeHeer97 will keep warming his up...

Sidewalk, what kind of engines are we talking about on the buoy tender? Large marine diesels? No doubt, a different beast. For long idling times, take a look at most diesel locomotives. They do not use antifreeze in them, so the choices in freezing weather are to let the locomotive sit forever on idle when not in use, drain the radiator and refill on restart (no small task on an engine this size), or store in a heated building when not in use. The more modern units now use antifreeze in them, last I checked!

Peace...

 

Opinions are just like redeyes... everyone's got one...

 

Hey STX/98. Not picking on you in anyway, just wanted to give you my two cents on some of the Q's you asked above......

If your engine/tranny runs 'unsmooth' when cold, then you may have other problems going on. Mine runs as smooth cold as when warmed up (76k so far). I do the Start it up, let it idle down and out the garage, take it easy style of warmup.

I agree with you that most engine wear is at startup, but warming it up faster, by driving it, keeps that warmup time at a minimum. With 5 minutes of idling, the temp guage is just starting to move, in 5 minutes, my thermostat is already open.

The 'old' days of carborated engines and sloppy tolerences pretty much mandated warm up times of 5 minutes or more, just to keep it idling. But like it's been said, these days, with fuel injection and tighter tolerences and such, an engine warms up faster being driven, then just idling.

About the OD being turned off whe the engine is cold, I'd have to agree with that one. You don't really want to "lug" a cold engine. It's working harder that way then running at higher rpm's. Since my OD kicks in at @ 40-45 mph on the one road I travel on when the rig is cold, I switch mine off so the engine is not bogged down during that time.

Anyway, opinions are just like a$$hole$. Everyone's got one! and that's what makes this site so cool.

 

Bambino,

I was checking my temps last winter and summer via the digital therm. I don't warm up more than 15 sec. Sub zero weather my therm hits 89 degrees in about 8 minute (my commute I then let it run for 2 or 3 minutes till it reaches 91, the temp it wants to hold summer or winter). Summer it takes about 6 minutes.

Also, for those of you who like me have a very short commute. If you don't warm up before you start, you may want to let it set and run after you arrive, just to make sure it reaches full temp and has some opportunity to eliminate moisture. I tried warming up 2 minutes during this experiment and it made very little difference int the amount of time to reach 91 deg, 30 to 60 seconds.

Bottom line, I think we are talking about splitting hairs.

 

What I'm referring is relevent to the outside temperature. During the summer and even most of the spring and fall the outsides temperatures here in Texas are warm enough that it is not even hardly noticeable, but start your truck up in January when it's cold out and just listen to the sound your engine makes while idiling for the first 30 seconds or so. Part of this is that the engine is revving up slightly, but it definately does not sound quite as smooth as it does after it warms up a little and idles down after a second. My truck has done this from the day I got it new as has every other vehicle i've ever been in. I have noticed many other people referring to it on here aswell. (You might remember hearing about this back when we were all argueing back and forth about the advantages of useing synthetic oil.)

I'd agree that by driving it you'd warm it up faster, but I wouldn't necessarilly assume that faster is better. It would seem like by starting your truck and letting it idle for a few minutes, that you would be warming up your engine while at the same time putting as little stress on it as possible by keeping the RPMs at idle.

I completely agree - I'm not saying i'm right and all of yall are wrong at all! Just my 2 cents!