Driving: short trips and exhaust

Self-tutoring about driving habits: the tutor mentions a possible connection.

The following is according to my understanding.

I was noticing the exhaust from my wife’s car had a strong signature. Was is from partially-burned fuel, oil, or something else? I recently changed the oil and everything about that seems fine. Today I checked the air cleaner, which seems clean enough. However, over the past few days, an has idea percolated in my mind.

I’ve heard short trips can be very hard on a car when that’s mainly what it does. My wife’s car, most days, gets driven to work and back, barely two miles each way. It seems such a scenario matches the “short trips” idea. Short trips, it seems, can cause carbon buildup, which can then cause messy burning of fuel.

I wondered if my wife’s car, doing mainly short trips, had accumulated carbon buildup which was, in turn, causing the strong smell of its exhaust. Today, after some errands, I took it for a highway drive of about ten minutes, at a speed of around 100km/h. I noted that the engine did indeed reach operating temperature.

Returning home, I shut off the car and got out. The exhaust smell was very mild. It seems the car needed some highway driving to purge the engine of carbon. Maybe I will make a point of taking a highway drive every week or so:)

Source:

jalopnik.com