I let mine idle for a *couple* minutes, until I feel comfortable that oil is a bit warm and pumped through the engine, then I drive it. My first ten minutes of driving is warming up the *entire* drivetrain, engine to wheels. I don't believe idling for two minutes is any worse than driving right away when everything is cold. I'm sure there is a point between the two extremes that is optimal for clean combustion and minimal stress.....

As for pollution, my understanding is the catalytic converter doesn't work well until warmed up anyway, whether you driving or idling. Granted driving probably warms it up faster....

I think Maveric is pretty much on the money. Just let it get lubed up, and treat it right until everything is warmed up. Then beat the hell out of it Waiting until 3 bars is too long.

 

We had this discussion in the "under the hood" forum a few days ago. My car has oil pressure and water temp gauges (Autometer) and there are circumstances which require a rather lengthy warm-up before driving (six inches of snow on the car or complete frozen over windows). In this case, when the car is started, I can finish the clean-up which might take 5-6 minutes, climb in the car and the temp gauge is STILL on 120-degrees and the oil pressure is humming along at about 75psi. As soon as I get the car out and onto the road, the OEM bars will take a few miles of easy driving to get to three but what is remarkable is the fact that when they finally do show three bars, the water temp gauge is usually showing 40-50 degrees less than normal (175-180F). The three bars ALWAYS come on a few minutes before I reach normal operating temps. So....even when you THINK you're "normal" you may be far from it. At least with regards to water temps, which usually take LONGER to get to normal operating levels than oil temps.
I baby the car for the first 10 minutes, nothing over 4K on the tach. When it's 5-degrees outside, if I have to VTEC to get somewhere fast, I should of woken up earlier. Otherwise, I'll wait untiil the car is well lubricated before having any fun.
I just don't see how revving the hell out of the engine five minutes after warmup during this time of year (at least in my neck of the woods) is doing anything positive to the internals.

 

I always warm it up in the morning like until it hit two bar.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RazorV3
[B]i dont' care about wasting gasoline, i let the car warm up to 2 or (most of the time) 3 bars.

 

i don't know about the warming up the car if it's good or bad but do know i'm not going to get in my car during winter after i've just woken up and took a nice shower and threw on my clothes to get in a cold ass car with the heater blowing out cold air and my ass freezing on the leather seats.. so my theroy winter warm up summer it's at a good enough temp already.

 

Two Bars

 

I live in Florida and most of the time I start off already at three bars. Can I just VTEC from the start b/c there is three bars already or should I let the oil run through???

 

drive about 5 more minutes after there are 3 bars on the car, coolant temperature warms up faster than engine oil temp.

 

I've heard that the worst that can happen from letting your car warm up in the garage before driving is that the condensation in the mufflers will case premature rust.

I can't imagine it hurting the engine - unless it was very prolonged.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by spidermike9
[B]
I can't believe some of the opinions in this thread.