I have tried to find a thread on winter prep for the W222 but all you see is winter tires or battery maintenance. I keep my car in a non-heated garage and being retired, I may not drive the car for 2-3 days at a time and only short distances such as to the grocery store. Right now we are going thru temps in the -4 C and I ask what, if anything, I should do for the car. Some folks say do nothing, some have said run it for a few minutes. some say do nothing because you are only going to ruin your air shocks and other items with the temporary heating up of components which may cause unnecessary cracking of materials.

Thank you for your tips

 

-4 Celsius is good for the car. At -20 to -30 I'd use my "Webasto" stationary heater or an electric pre-heater (which I don't have because I have the car in a warm garage). I would be mainly concerned about the battery charge level. Perhaps the engine does not like it if the trips are too short to get some mileage at a proper engine temperature (at least frequently if not on every trip). Have a look at the oil filler cap once in a while. Running a few minutes only makes all things worse.

 

Be sure to fully warm up the engine after each start. Most advise 30 minutes of highway speed driving. Shutting down engines w/o doing this invites condensation in the oil and exhaust system which over time can do expensive damage.

 

Do you actually follow that advice in Florida? I agree that it would be safe for the engine but I'd consider it impossible to follow that advice for the majority. If the daily trip is 20 minutes, one would need to drive an additional 20 minutes even in Florida to make it 30 minutes with a warm engine. Don't want to name a compromise but in practise a compromise is inevitable.

 

Yes...Ask my wife. lol

I should add that I've never had engine problems and since I'm 79, we're talking quite a few years, quite a few miles, and not a lot of cars. Might also add that if you trade cars every couple of years, probably a moot point,