Why It’s Important To Warm Your Car Before Moving

why-its-important-to-warm-your-car-before-moving

Turning your car on and immediately giving it the rev is a sure way to take some life out of your engine. You don’t need to warm it up to as long as 10 minutes, but it’s important just to let your engine oil circulate around the engine. Vehicle engines requires very little fuel to maintain an idle speed, which means there is not much heat being generated. Without much heat, metal in the engine does not expand quickly, and the engine takes longer time to achieve its design tolerances—the optimal space between moving parts. As a result, the cold engine experiences a high level of unburned fuel mixture.

Driving away immediately you start your car puts the engine under load. When the engine is cold, the lubrication is poor as the oil is thicker and the hydrodinamic lubrication is poor, this means more friction between moving parts, and deterioration of the cylinder walls and piston exterior among others things in the engine.

The fuel-injection computer calibrates precisely how much fuel is required. When your car engine is cold, the computer directs the fuel injectors to allow more fuel into the engine. As the engine warms, the injectors let in less fuel. In addition, with more fuel burned in a shorter time, aside from waste of fuel, the engine’s components heat up faster, expand quickly, and reach their design tolerance—all of which cuts cylinder blow by to a fraction. Of course, it’s not advised to full-throttle or high-RPM on a cold engine. But that’s just common sense.

Leaving the engine to run idle for a few minutes will allow it to reach a temperature in which lubrication is good. The petrol consumption is negligible and give your car a better performance on the move.

And definitely, revving your engine while cold is one of the quickest ways to make it suffer.

About Nonso Okafor

I've worked as a technical support representative in major auto centers in Nigeria for more than twenty years. I have dealt with a variety of problems in my capacity as a customer service representative and auto diagnostics expert. I'm committed to assisting people in properly maintaining their automobiles and in appreciating this magnificent innovation known as an automobile.

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