QOTD: Hot or Cold?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Last week’s ball-shattering polar vortex flash froze much of the U.S. and Canada, sending Netflix viewership soaring and no doubt spurring a mini baby boom in nine months’ time. While it may have been toasty in your home (sorry, Michigan gas customers), your car’s engine block found itself in a climate POW camp.

Hailing from the Great White North, I know all too well the prayers muttered while twisting the ignition key, knowing all too well your oil’s as thick as fudge and hoping with all your might that good wishes can be converted into cranking amps. Now, let’s say you succeed in firing up that ice-cold engine. What next?

There’s plenty of debate raging this week over the best strategy for reducing wear on your frigid engine block and precious moving components following a polar startup. Most of that debate raged over at Jalopnik, where some readers took exception to the idea that a car should be allowed to warm up for a short time before hitting the road.

Perhaps those ornery readers reside in sunnier climes? On January 30th, GM logged 1.59 million remote engine starts (via mobile app) from owners unwilling to sit in an ice locker, cursing, waiting for a breath of warm air to drift from the dash vents. That’s a 70 percent increase over an average January day in the United States, by the way.

While these GM owners probably had their own comfort in mind, not their engine’s, the controversy still rages. Should you get in and drive off right away, confident in your engine oil’s temperature-cheating viscosity, or let it sit? Chances are there isn’t 10W-30 in your crankcase. Should be fine, right?

Not necessarily, but there’s no perfect solution for this age-old conundrum. The best advice anyone can scrounge up comes from Dr. Andy Randolph, technical director at ECR Engines, who explained (in extreme detail) to Jalopnik that a two-minute warmup is probably your best bet.

This author, after 30 seconds to a minute or so of dicking around with the radio, climate controls, etc, is a fan of letting the clutch out and idling down the block at 10-12 mph or so, traffic permitting. The higher RPM upon cold weather startup allows an upshift to second gear. Why not make headway while the car warms up at idle?

So, B&B members, are you already a follower of Dr. Randolph’s advice, or do you start your cold car to the beat of a different drum?

[Image: Genesis Motors]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Macmcmacmac Macmcmacmac on Feb 06, 2019

    My Focus gets put into gear and driven off at -30 as soon as I can fix my seat belt. It has been running flawlessly like this for 10 years now, 6 of which have involved a commute to work which is so short the temperature gauge does not budge. No block heater, no battery warmer. I replaced the original battery 2 years ago, which seems to be the one component which takes the worst of it. If I didn't have a reason to come back to the house at lunch, I would walk. Oddly enough, the biggest problem my Fords have given me is a driver's door that won't latch when it gets cold. Now THAT is a big issue.

  • ToolGuy ToolGuy on Feb 07, 2019

    A distinct advantage of electric vehicles (straight up battery electric) is instant heat as soon as you get in the vehicle - no waiting for the engine to warm up. It is amazing to get into a 'cold' EV, start the defroster and watch the ice begin to melt right away. Also eye-opening to have the cabin comfortably warming as soon as you start driving - no waiting to turn on the heater. I checked with some authorities - pretty sure ICE vehicles get zero MPG while idling with remote start. (... considers reporting the 10-minute internal combustion warm-up DEFECT to asdf.... lol)

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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