Troubleshooter: Idling away your money?

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With fall colours upon us, can winter’s blast be far away? Soon snow tires will find their way out of backyard storage sheds and onto our vehicles, and snow brushes and shovels will replace the rakes and clippers leaning up against the house. Of course it will take less time for our autos to acclimate to winter blasts than us, and therein lays the problem: excessive engine warm-up time.

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I’d like to blame some preceding generation for instilling this habit of letting a vehicle idle until its interior is mid-summer afternoon scorching hot. But our predecessors, who drove from the carbureted to the fuel injected eras, learned that modern combustion engines only need enough idle time to circulate oil, or about 30 seconds. Those 10-minute remotely-started warm-ups will waste fuel, can lead to engine running problems, and will pollute wildly as no internal combustion engine powering a road-vehicle on the planet has an emission system that operates when the engine is idling.

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Troubleshooter: Idling away your money? Back to video

But there’s a lot more to successfully heading down a frosty road than just the engine’s condition. First and foremost, there’s safety. It doesn’t matter how well the engine is running if you can’t see through the windshield and side windows and back glass because of frost, ice, and snow. There are plenty of hacks and devices to shorten the wait for a clear view, such as block heater use, windshield covers, de-icing spray, etc. As for duration, it’s simple; just don’t head out until you can safely see.

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While most automatic transmissions can move a vehicle on a sub -25° morning after 30 seconds of engine idle time, for continued reliability and peak performance, it’s best to give them between 2 and 3 minutes to get their fluid circulating and ready to shift. Older power-steering systems can show their weaknesses in rusted lines and cracked tubing on cold days. As the temperature of the fluid drops, the pressure it can exert on lines, pumps, and seals increases, which is why power-steering leaks usually begin during winter months. Avoiding full-lock turns until the steering system is somewhat warmer than outside temps is a good way to reduce leak risks.

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The biggest reason we love to warm our rides up to the extreme is comfort, plain and simple. Take a peak around you during a sub-zero commute and see what drivers are wearing. Light jackets or sweaters seem to be the norm no matter how far north you may be. Does anyone ever consider how they might fare standing out at the side of the road in frigid wind while waiting for roadside assistance to get them out of a ditch? There are a lot of breakdown scenarios where waiting in an idling vehicle with the heater on won’t be possible. Dress for the weather, not the inside temperature of a perfectly operating automobile.

Keep a coat and blankets in the trunk. Even new cars run into surprise issues — don’t let yourself learn the consequences the hard way.