cfmistry

The correct answer.

Yuille36

Most definitely....with temperatures hovering around 13-15 degrees this morning in Northern Virginia. When I put the car in drive, my oil temperature was 69 degrees.
So it didn't take long to reach operating temperature But their were many spots that had black ice, so you had to pay attention, and not be an idiot.

shadymilkman

80* before moving. These are performance motors, they need to be brought to temp. High idle is just for the cats.. My choice is idle wear to get to operational temps. Im also in the camp that turns the car on, then prime the fuel pumps, then start the motor..

Yuille36

Also these W211 E55 and E63 are already 14-17 yrs old. IMHO should be warmed up during freezing temperatures, as these cars don’t warm up as fast as newer cars. I let my car idle for at least 5 mins before driving off, to put some heat into the engine which helps the coolant and oil flow better.

CharlyE500

I am lucky in California. This morning 55F and the car is in garage. I only warm up 1 min outside of garage then go.

remix405

I usually let the car idle for 4-5 min while I load up the car with my backpack, lunch box, coffee, find the right tunes, turn the seat warmers on etc. Thankfully I'm in California also so the lowest Temps my car might see in a winter might be 40F

Sulaco

I find the car does the best burnouts when temp gauge reads 0C, so before it can even warm the cats up I'm laying skidmarks in front of my house.

kevm14

I believe the proper procedure for just about any car that you start in below freezing is the following:
- Start engine.
- If you need to clear off ice so you can, you know, see, this would be a good time. If not, skip this step.
- I wait about as long as it takes to situate my phone, seat belt and whatever, and put it in gear
- Drive gently until the engine oil is reasonably warm. I have no idea how fast the oil warms up in these cars but probably faster than my other cars because this is the first fancy European car I've owned with an oil thermostat. So it probably doesn't take too long. In my CTS-V, the coolant reached 195 LONG before the oil was anywhere near that so realistically it wasn't safe to get on it fully but I didn't drive it much in the cold anyway. The coolant temp probably matters less than the oil temp but it can be an indicator obviously.
- Optional: If you have a BMW engine with rod bearing issues, pray to your god.
- Anyway once you think the oil is reasonably warm, do what you want.
- All of this will happen way faster than idling the car in the driveway to "help it." It's not helping it. You're prolonging engine operation in suboptimal conditions (including startup enrichment, super cold oil or oil with some water content, the exhaust with water, etc.). And you aren't warming up several items very effectively or at all such as: transmission (yes this may warm with the engine but certainly slower than if you just drove it), differential and any other driveline component like wheel bearings.

Sulaco

Your general point here is spot on. Just start the car, wait 15 seconds, and go gently until it's warm.

The only spot where I deviate is that when my engine temp reaches 80c I consider the oil warm enough and I let it rip. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's worked out fine for me. Plus, on the m113 the engine coolant and the oil cooling system are directly connected, so if it takes the oil longer to warm up than the coolant, it can't be by more than a minute or two. I've been mercilessly beating AMG M113's since the late 2000's and never had a problem. The motors are stronger than that, my methods are sound, or I'm just extremely lucky.

shadymilkman

All I know is that high perf racing series all warm their engines up to operating temp before moving their cars - given where the M156 is on the spectrum of motors, its age and different kinds of internal wear failures; Im going to stray from shocking the machine into service.

kevm14

My counter would be the M156 has no bottom end issues. And oil certainly flows to the top end within a few seconds of running so I guess I don't know why it should be treated way differently. Taking it easy on warmup is all you need to do. Nothing shocking about using 7% throttle and shifting at 2500 rpm....

Yuille36

Well this morning the temp was 37 degrees, and I let my M156 E63 warm up for 10 mins. When I got it to come to work, my seats were warm, and the interior was comfy.
Everyone has there own way of doing things, and there isn't a right or wrong way. It's personal preference.

Fountain35

I hop in the car, start it up wait for the rpm's to drop and drive like a 100 year old blue haired woman until the car completely warms up. I then just drive normally. (Which is like an old man).

thovey

The chances of mine being driven in the cold are pretty low anyways, but it is kept in a min 55 degree heated garage and after startup I generally just drive it very mellow down my long driveway and quite neighborhood street.

I never really let me vehicles just sit and idle. Particularly my diesel truck, it has so much cooling capacity that it will never warm up unless you drive it.

SleepersRock

Exactly this process for me too.

Naeblis

Idling for prolonged periods is unnecessary and just pumps a bunch of extra exhaust into the air. There are 1001 actual articles on this from automotive groups, enthusiast mags/blogs, and engine experts. Any remotely modern engine will warm up without issue and do so more efficiently by starting, waiting for it to cycle out of the high idle state, then driving sensibly until the engine reaches optimal temps. If it's very cold I'll wait the recommended 30 to 60 seconds but it's been years since I've lived anywhere cold enough for that to be necessary on a regular basis.

Not even joking, I already feel badly enough driving a 19mpg gas monster. Not going to add to the complex by idling unnecessarily for 10 mins anytime there's a bit of frost.

shadymilkman

Intrigued that the consensus is that 2.5 gallons of oil, and 3 gallons of coolant warm up in 30 seconds.

Naeblis

The consensus isn't that all fluids are at optimal temperature in 30 seconds. The consensus is that they're warm enough for the car to be driven safely within 30 to 60 seconds, that driving at lower RPMs gets those fluids to the most efficient operating temps far more quickly than letting the car idle for the 10 or more minutes some think is necessary, and that handling it that way is far better for the engine than letting it continually cycle in a colder state, which pumps excess fuel into the cylinders and breaks down more oil than would otherwise be the case.

I'll take the feedback from engineers who have done engine testing at national labs or worked on more engines than most will ever see alongside efficiency and teardown testing over anecdotes of "this is how I've always done it." I used to leave mine running for a few minutes because alongside thinking it was best for the engine it had the wonderful benefit of letting the cabin heat up as well. Once I read that it's not only worse for the engine efficiency but also possibly its longevity alongside creating more pollution from more fuel being burned while running rich for an extended period I changed to do what's better for the engine and the environment. Win-Win as far as I see it.

In the end everyone can do as they like with their own car but it's a bit wild to me that people would want to be armchair experts about this when we're driving vehicles that are already known to have fickle engines on top of everything else.

Sulaco

literally no one said that

PBE55

I've always been told that it's a good idea to wait for the rpm's to drop for the sake of the transmission regardless of engine or outside temperature. Can't seem to find a good article or video to back that up though.

ALFAitalia

Idling a car to warm it up is the worst thing to do....even owners manuals in most cars say to start them and drive gently. People who say they leave it idling for 15 or 20 minutes (you have too much time on your hands!) are doing more harm than good and actually slowing down the warm up process. Driving it gently from just after you start means slightly more load on the engine so it will warm up quicker and the cats will reach light-off quicker too. Leaving it running in idle will mean its injecting more fuel (on the cold cycle) just to keep it running and will do this for much longer than if you are driving it gently....this means excess fuel will be washing oil off the bnores....so far from helping you engine, long warn ups can in fact be more harmful. I start my cars.....then by the time I've put my belt on and phone in the holder the oil will be round the motor....into gear and off....rarely takes longer than 30 second to get moving.

https://driversed.com/trending/warmi...n-cold-weather

kevm14

Yes, I said that. I am OK if someone wants to do it because they like getting into a warm car or whatever. But don't sell me that it's better for the car. It isn't.

shadymilkman

Ignition and Idle fuel maps tuned for a bespoke hand assembled engine and were comparing characteristics from carburetors - ??. Contemplating the metallurgy, the crank, connecting rods, pistons, cylinder walls and coating are all different alloys; they all have different expansion rates, and forcing cold oil under load however 'gently' in and around these components is less damaging than waiting and letting everything reach equilibrium; because it takes longer (or burns fuel, that youre already going to burn..)? As though known, validated weakpoints directly exposed to these fluids (coolant/oil) like headbolts, cam adjusters, cams, and valve buckets are fully operational 'immediately' - and we're all ok driving on these components cold, Im not sure the consensus is accurate, from a wear perspective. If you just want to get in and drive, more power to you.. but its not better for the machine.

Apologies.. not antagonizing, just trying to be Socratic.

tlambert

You guys are waaaay over thinking all of this.

Just drive the car and enjoy it!! Hahahhaha.

Naeblis

From the Mercedes manual:

• Allow engine to warm up under low load use
• Do not run cold engine at high engine speeds. Running a cold engine at high engine speeds may shorten the service life of the engine.
• E 63 AMG: At engine temperatures below 68°F (20°C), the engine's maximum speed is restricted in order to protect it from damage. Avoid driving your vehicle at full speed when the engine is cold to prevent premature engine wear and/or diminished comfort.
• After a cold start, the automatic transmission shifts at a higher engine revolution. This allows the catalytic converter (gasoline engine) or the oxidation catalyst (diesel engine) to reach its operating temperature earlier.

Zero about letting the car idle for minutes at a time in order to reach optimal temps.

Now maybe, just maybe your everyday knowledge somehow outstrips that of Mercedes engineers as well as the other engineers, PhDs, and accredited persons mentioned or alluded to earlier in this thread, but I'm inclined to think otherwise. Do whatever you like, but stop trying to pass off knowledge that metals expand and contract and that fluids behave differently across a thermal range as some kind of basis for disproving what others have found through actual data-backed testing, it's just silly at this point.

If what you're saying were the case you could easily back it up with references and real world data but you've yet to produce anything but anecdotes, conjecture, and loosely strung together properties of metals and fluids. I'll take the hard evidence and feedback of actual experts as a basis for how I prolong the life of my engine.

At this point you are just being argumentative/antagonistic because an actual debate requires evidence, which you've produced none of.