We’re all guilty of this, I believe. Well, I am anyway. There is absolutely nothing worse than climbing into a cold car in the morning. We just love to start the car to get it warmed up, that’s why we have remote car starters.

Hate to bust your bubble, but letting your car idle to warm up, could actually be doing your car more harm than good. It’s actually stripping oil away from the engine’s cylinders and pistons.

Here’s the science of it. As George Constanza would say “You need a Johnson rod in there”, when referring to most of not really knowing a whole lot about cars and how they really work. An internal combustion engine works by using pistons to compress a mixture of air and vaporized fuel within a cylinder. The compressed mixture is then ignited to create a combustion

When your engine is cold, the gasoline is less likely to evaporate and create the correct ratio of air and vaporized fuel for combustion. Engines with electronic fuel injection have sensors that compensate for the cold by pumping more gasoline into the mixture. The engine continues to run rich in this way until it heats up to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dad always used to tell us engine parts like piston rings and cylinder lines could have a shorter life span if the oil is washed away by gasoline.

Actually, driving your car is the fastest way to warm up the engine, but if you jump into your car and gun the engine right away, it could put unnecessary strain on the engine, so just take it easy, huh? You’re not running the Indy 500.

Best thing to do when you start the car is start it, take a moment to clear your windows and adjust your mirrors. Then you should be ready to go.

Bottom line is, you’re not doing your car any favors by letting it run for several minutes just so you can be toasty warm right when you get in the car. Relax, you’ll warm up soon enough. Save your car, I guarantee you would be a lot colder without the car, am I right?

 

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