Hey guys!

Back from a short winter here in TX..... or no winter at all since its been very warm! I had decided today to get my stewie out of storage. She has been stored since January 12th.

Read through many threads and the general idea seamed to be that it was best to start the car, put it in gear to get it out of the garage so I wouldn't die from fumes(lol), and then allow it to idle for 20 minutes. During this idle phase I pulled off the registration sticker and affixed my new one. I also vacuumed out the interior as it was full of dust n stuff. After allowing it to idle for about 20 minutes I drove it off taking it easy going through every gear and not taking it past 4-5k rpm's. After about 8 or so miles of driving I got on the highway and took her up to vtec through a few gears and drove her like I just bought her (Its been so long since I have even seen her that it really felt like the time I drove her off the dealership lot).

Now after some additional research I read people saying that its better to start it and drive it after a couple minutes of idling and that it's bad to let her idle for 20 minutes before driving? Someone stated that the transmission doesn't get any oil unless it's moving? I'm confused now and feel like the people that said to let her idle 20 min before driving gave me incorrect information.

Think I did any damage by starting her up this way? Really hope I didn't and I really thought I was taking extra precautions to not cause any harm after storage.

Thanks!

 

You didn't harm anything, all you did was waste some fuel. You didn't help anything either but don't sweat notion that you caused harm. I probably would have let it idle about 2 minutes or so. Your winter storage was very short, nothing fancy needed upon start up, but an idle that was a little longer than usual did no harm. Try to drive the car for at least 20 miles to get the oil nice and hot and burn off any condensation and excess fuel dilution. Enjoy, mine is still about 6 weeks from coming out of storage.

 

I personally would have just let it fully warm up and drive it normally. How long was it in storage? How's the oil? 20 min of idling will produce a little carbon build up, but you didn't hurt anything.

 

I think the short answer is you most likely didn't do any damage at all by letting it idle for 20 minutes. Probably the worst thing that happened is you wasted a little gas Some other thoughts...

While it's probably not doing any damage, letting it idle for that long isn't necessary or helpful based on what I've read. That 20 minutes certainly warmed the engine, but then you drove an easy 8 miles after that, which most likely would have been plenty of time to get the engine and all fluids up to full operating temperature by itself. Everything I've seen says the best way to warm up the car is to drive it gently after giving it 10-30 seconds of warm-up idling (I give my car a minute or two of idling after pulling it out of storage, but no more than that; then I start driving it easy until it's fully warmed). As you hit on with your post, driving heats up everything (gears, seals, all other moving parts), whereas idling mainly gets just the engine itself.

On the transmission oil -- the transmission is filled with oil all the time; it doesn't get pumped in from a reservoir once the car starts moving or anything like that. However, it's not going to heat up until you start driving and the gears start spinning (sitting in neutral at idle isn't going to get it warmed).

Just my $0.02; I'm sure other people will have other thoughts

 

Mine is coming out on Sunday Will let it idle for a few minutes, take it out on the roads for a short romp, then stick it right back in the garage

 

No worries. You didn't do anything wrong.