Autos: should you warm up your car? If so, for how long?

Self-tutoring about driving: the tutor mentions the tradition of “warming up the car.”

Years ago, one mechanic told me that the sooner the car gets to operating temperature, the better. Therefore, he said, what’s best is to start up then drive away as soon as it’s natural to do so. You might start driving slowly, he suggested, but idling wasn’t beneficial, from his point of view.

Some people – likely people in colder places – think that, especially in winter, more warm-up might be needed. However, it seems that, in general, 2-3 minutes is the most a car will need to warm up; newer ones, perhaps only around 30 seconds. That’s from the engine’s point of view.

Some people might warm up the car longer in order to defog the windows, etc. If so, that’s a different motivation from the one I’m talking about.

Source:

globalnews.ca