Cold cranking: is it bad for my car?

[tigger]

If I don't let thh SIII warm up at a couple of thousand RPM (I'm guessing, no rev counter) for about 5 mins before I go anywhere, it will cough and splutter as I drive along and die the first time I stop at a junction. I suppose cold start wear is less of a worry for me though.

Most of my carbureted vehicles have been like that. Most of the time I let my carbed cars idle for a few minutes until they warm up, with fuel injected cars I just let the oil pressure get up. I've never had an EFI car 'hiccup' and die on me.

 

[thedguy]

Most of my carbureted vehicles have been like that. Most of the time I let my carbed cars idle for a few minutes until they warm up, with fuel injected cars I just let the oil pressure get up. I've never had an EFI car 'hiccup' and die on me.

Ditto. I was only speaking of cars made since many of this forum membership were being conceived.

 

[Matt2000]

I had forgtten about fuel injection, which explains why modern cars don't have the problem.

 

[Spectre]

If I don't let thh SIII warm up at a couple of thousand RPM (I'm guessing, no rev counter) for about 5 mins before I go anywhere, it will cough and splutter as I drive along and die the first time I stop at a junction. I suppose cold start wear is less of a worry for me though.

I've seen lots of pre-heater kits and they all look pretty good, I may consider one at some time purely to get the engine running properly without using half a gallon of petrol.

I had forgtten about fuel injection, which explains why modern cars don't have the problem.

Perhaps you should convert to fuel injection.

It's not like there's a shortage of EFI Rover V8 manifolds and MegaSquirt is cheap enough.

 

[lv2xlr8]

My car tends to drive like shit if I don't let it warm up idle for quite some time. The braking and acceleration will be extremely poor (unresponsive) if I just start the car and drive after 30 seconds.

Are remote starters just worthless then? I just don't see how it could be good for the engine to get up and go after sitting over night at frigid temps then idling for 30 seconds and driving.

EDIT: My car tends to be a piece of shit lol but regardless maybe you all have better cars that aren't so cold affected? How about for new cars? I should say I don't have a block heater or battery heater.

 

[NooDle]

^braking? that's weird. AFAIK the cold (unless it's extreme cold) doesn't change the behavior of the brakes at all...
I heard those remote starter thingamajigs can be quite good, if a bit expensive

for me though, no such problems : diesel + preheating = easy start up, every time.
(for the record, it does get cold here too some days, today being -9?C)

 

[lv2xlr8]

^braking? that's weird. AFAIK the cold (unless it's extreme cold) doesn't change the behavior of the brakes at all...
I heard those remote starter thingamajigs can be quite good, if a bit expensive

for me though, no such problems : diesel + preheating = easy start up, every time.
(for the record, it does get cold here too some days, today being -9?C)

Yeah my brakes are a bit bad but if I drove off after 30 secs there would be absolutely no feel in them at all. You'd have to stomp on them hard to brake from slow speeds. As soon as the car warms up there much much better.

But remote starts have preset times to warm up the car usually around 7-10mins being the shortest. Some go up as much as 12-15 but assuming that warming up the car when it is very cold out is bad then these can't be good for the car. I know you can turn them off manually but what's the point of one if you're going to only warm it up for 1 min anyway?

 

[thedguy]

Problem with remote start is, if something goes wrong during start up and you're sitting at the coffee table when it kicks on and say overnight the oil cooler line gave out and you'll run the motor with no oil pressure for long enough to do serious damage.

For those with manuals, all you have to do is leave it in gear and forget when you hit that starter (assuming there is no clutch lockout switch like on bmw's).

 

[zeoniks]

So is it bad to let the car warm up to drive?

Unfortunately, my car isn't blessed with an oil pressure gauge, only oil temperature gauge.

I don't know if anyone notices this in their car, but whenever I start driving the instant I turn the car on, it feels a bit sluggish. I usually just start driving once the oil temperature gauges comes off the stop.

 

[thedguy]

So is it bad to let the car warm up to drive?

Unfortunately, my car isn't blessed with an oil pressure gauge, only oil temperature gauge.

I don't know if anyone notices this in their car, but whenever I start driving the instant I turn the car on, it feels a bit sluggish. I usually just start driving once the oil temperature gauges comes off the stop.

It's gonna be sluggish because the pistons and rings have to expand to get better compression, and the fuel curve is enriched to help the engine run under these conditions.

 

[airmenair]

^braking? that's weird. AFAIK the cold (unless it's extreme cold) doesn't change the behavior of the brakes at all...
I heard those remote starter thingamajigs can be quite good, if a bit expensive

for me though, no such problems : diesel + preheating = easy start up, every time.
(for the record, it does get cold here too some days, today being -9?C)

The cold will affect the viscosity of brake fluid increasing the time constant, which is the time it takes from when then brake pedal is depressed to the time the fluid reaches the brakes. Larger diameter brake lines minimize this issue. A professor of mine told a story about a forklift operator who was driving aggressively on a cold morning and went to hit the brakes but nothing happened. The brake lines were too small and the brakes didn't react. I think the result of this was either injury or death to some person...can't remember exactly but alot of his stories ended up that way.

Also of course temperature will affect the coefficient of friction between the pads and rotors. Warm brakes perform better than cold brakes.