Well, I can tell you that I have two Nissan engines the family (Pathfinder and G). I drive one, my wife drives the other. I keep them both in Mobil1 and premium filters. She drives off after start, I wait for about 45 secs and keep under 2-3K until warm. My Blackstone Lab reports look good, even on a shorter interval, she has very high chrome wear (rings). However, I've been told that Nissan uses alot of chrome in their rings and even with high wear (at the level I have it), the engine will still be kicking for 150K+.

I do agree that excessive idling is bad, not as bad as pulling way WOT, but if the purpose of a 5 min warmup is to help the engine, its not.

If you have a hard time keeping the RPM down during the first few mins, keep in mind you get about 11mpg while in Open Loop mode. The needle doesnt mean jack. You dont go closed loop and back on o2 sensors until the cats are warm. That takes 2x as long as your coolant and gauge. The beauty is that Nissan engines can *generally* take the abuse and still last 150-200K. However, your emissions system might give you headaches before 100k.

 

Personaly i think u all guys are full of "crap".What i do is i start the car up and hold the gas all the way to the bottom untill i c my temperature meter @ normal!!!!!!!
Best and quickes way to worm up the car and i bet u it will last me as long as my CIVIC YO!

 

haha, i have a 80 year old neighbor who actually did this. I was intially pretty upset about it because it was loud enough to wake us up fairly often. But it became humorous as the car got progressively worse sounding. She killed it in about 8 months and had to buy another car. I cant remember what it was she was driving, some domestic car tho.

 

agreed. warming up the car for 5 minutes is not excessive idling. i would much rather the oil be warm than still thick and cold when i start driving my car.

 

Just get remote start if you live in a cold region....It is not that expensive...my remote start is bomb

 

In warm weather, my car is driven right away, altho not fast until it's warmed properly.
In cold weather, she gets a 2 minute warm up then driven (provided I can see) but not fast until warm.
C.

 

even I am in NJ.

player - dont warm your car for more than 1 or 2 mins. Cold idle's are very bad for the car. Just drive off within a min or two and dont go above 4K rpm's till the oil temp comes to a little below half... its usual position..

and then gun it all you want
some little precautions will take your car a long way.

 

a lot of you are saying it's bad for the car. i'd be very interested to see some kind of information or data supporting this. Could you justify how it is bad for the car? or is that just your opinion.

 

Normal start is about 10 seconds of warm-up, followed by driving while babying the engine until up to full temp. Cold weather (below 20F) is normally a 30 seconds or so warm-up, followed by easy driving. Really cold weather (below zero F) normally warrants a minute or two of warm up.

Just exactly what wear are you saving your engine from with these long warm ups? Do you really think that 1500 or 2000 rpm is killing your car?

 

do you think there is no wear at 1500 or 2000 rpm when the oil is not at it's full lubricating potential?

 

i took some of your guys' advice, thanks

 

mine sits inside a garage .. so i give it a few seconds before .. i go

 

Just warm it up until the temp gauge starts to move to the first line.

That's my rule anyways

 

I don't warm up chit. The freeway is about 1/2 from mile house and it has a nice hair pin turn for an on ramp. I usually get it up to 100-110mph by the time I have to merge.

 

From what I know, the oil is thicker when its cold, or when you have not used your car for a while. In old cars, people where asked to idle (~5 mins) their cars so that the oil temp would heat up before you could drive off. But with newer technology (higher viscosity) you can drive off much sooner. But as a precuationary measure and because not everyone knows what oil they use and its viscosity its wiser to heat/idle the car for a min or two and then go.

I am sure there might be some facts abt all of this somewhere out there, but to prove such a small point, I am not taking the effort to search for it.