Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Car Chat => Topic started by: DaveA on 23 June 2013, 10:54:04
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Hi
What are your thoughts about warming engines up on tick over? I've always thought that it was best to drive away as soon as you start up. Have been reading about people who will not pull away until engine has reached "80 - 90 degs" before they put engine under load.
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Hi
What are your thoughts about warming engines up on tick over? I've always thought that it was best to drive away as soon as you start up. Have been reading about people who will not pull away until engine has reached "80 - 90 degs" before they put engine under load.
That takes some time!
I usually just drive off, but always keep revs under 3k rpm. I never like reving it too hard when engine is cold :)
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I'd recommend driving straight off, but not giving the engine too much work for the first 4 or 5 miles. Likewise, I like to give my engine an easy time for a mile of 2 before switching off.
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On a modern fully managed engine, that runs perfectly the instant it's started, warming it up is pointless. You could even argue that it will take much longer to reach operating temperature(which is deliberately high on modern engines) than just driving it would. The only time I do it is whilst I scrape the windows.
The reason why older cars responded to being warmed up was due to inefficiencies in the ignition and induction systems. Points based distributors are very poor with low energy output and minimal timing adjustment, whereas DIS systems can vary timing exactly as required even across a few RPM. Choke mechanisms aren't really meant to be driven on, and multi carb setups are particularly fussy. So you'd let it idle for a minute or so until the engine was running smoothly across all the cylinders, reduce the choke setting and then drive off.
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It's still worth taking it easy until the oil is up to temperature. The tolerances in an engine are not correct until it's up to operating temperature and the lubrication is sub-standard until the oil is hot.
Leaving it idling to warm it up is just a waste of fuel, however.