Its bad for your car to let it idle in the morning?

[spindlecone]

I thought we debunked all arguements.

Momix
I just read thru the entire thread, is no scientific data to prove pros or cons.
Nobody has debunked anything other than citing thier own opinions.
Is it good? is it bad? is no concreate answere.
This has not been an arguement, it will turn out to be a never ending thread with no answere, I say lock it or get rid of it, it will never go anywhere nor serve any purpose, just a waste of bandwidth

 

[MONMIX]

yeah the only one that made any sence to me was the closed loop / open loop issue.

You chimed in that it only runs open for twenty or thirty seconds reguardless of sitting still or in drive ( or in reverse backing out the driveway ). I verified your statement for two weeks, most mornings in the low 40's to upper 30's.

So the only arguement to me that had the potential to carry any weight has nothing.
In my mind it is a non issue as far as the vehicle is concerend. The enviroment, that is another issue.

 

[spindlecone]

yeah the only one that made any sence to me was the closed loop / open loop issue.

You chimed in that it only runs open for twenty or thirty seconds reguardless of sitting still or in drive ( or in reverse backing out the driveway ). I verified your statement for two weeks, most mornings in the low 40's to upper 30's.

So the only arguement to me that had the potential to carry any weight has nothing.
In my mind it is a non issue as far as the vehicle is concerend. The enviroment, that is another issue.

Actually I said 5 to 10 seconds about the OL/CL, my point was and still is, people warm their cars for a comfort factor, you have 50 million people warming up in the morn, thats alot of wasted gas, is it good or bad for the engine? don't think that has been answered at this point

 

[gijoecam]

is it good or bad for the engine? don't think that has been answered at this point

Actually, it's GOT to be bad for the engine.... NOT running the engine is the only thing guaranteed to cause ZERO wear and tear on it. An engine is only going to move its pistons up and down a finite number of times in its life. Does letting it warm up change that number? I think there's some compelling examples that there's little effect on engine life (i.e. police cars, ambulances, etc). I have yet to see anything concrete one way or the other, but I'm quite sure that if there's a way to blow something up, the Mythbusters will check it out for us eventually.

-Joe

 

[V8BoatBuilder]

I did not read all of the posts, but I will add this. My company truck (05 F150)gets started early in the morning and runs pretty much all day long. Thats right, 8 hours straight every day. It sits at idle for long periods every day. I have put 75000 EXTREMELY hard miles on it and havent had any problems. We run our gas trucks to 150,000 miles and our diesels to 200,000 and never have problems.

75,000 miles on a 2005?? What do you do for a living?

 

[rocket 5979]

Actually, it's GOT to be bad for the engine.... NOT running the engine is the only thing guaranteed to cause ZERO wear and tear on it. An engine is only going to move its pistons up and down a finite number of times in its life. Does letting it warm up change that number? I think there's some compelling examples that there's little effect on engine life (i.e. police cars, ambulances, etc). I have yet to see anything concrete one way or the other, but I'm quite sure that if there's a way to blow something up, the Mythbusters will check it out for us eventually.

-Joe

Though it was only meant for a joke, that was about the most accurate assesment of the properties/differences between the internal combustion engine running at idle versus while driving. lol.

 

[BrooklynBay]

I live in NY where just about everything is illegal, including letting your vehicle idle more than a few minutes. They ticket for everything here. I don't know anybody personally that got ticketed for this, but why take a chance with all of the police, and meter mates that are desperate to meet their monthly quotas? They write out double parking tickets if you are waiting in your vehicle next to another vehicle that is about to pull out from a parking spot. There is no warning either. I don't know how they expect you to park without pulling up next to somebody else, and waiting a minute for them to pull out.

 

[rocket 5979]

I don't know how they expect you to park without pulling up next to somebody else, and waiting a minute for them to pull out.

Osmosis.

 

[F14CRAZY]

I live in NY where just about everything is illegal, including letting your vehicle idle more than a few minutes. They ticket for everything here. I don't know anybody personally that got ticketed for this, but why take a chance with all of the police, and meter mates that are desperate to meet their monthly quotas? They write out double parking tickets if you are waiting in your vehicle next to another vehicle that is about to pull out from a parking spot. There is no warning either. I don't know how they expect you to park without pulling up next to somebody else, and waiting a minute for them to pull out.

Yo play games with them! Get a remote starter and hide around a corner. When they're about to write a ticket, turn it off

 

[leenjen]

Yo play games with them! Get a remote starter and hide around a corner. When they're about to write a ticket, turn it off

Do you think that will stop them from writing the ticket

 

[rocket 5979]

Do you think that will stop them from writing the ticket

Heck no! If they are already in the process then their mind was already made up.

 

[F14CRAZY]

What if you argued it was a turbo timer and was necessary for the engine?

Some say it's really bad to turn off a Power Stroke right after working it hard

 

[rocket 5979]

What if you argued it was a turbo timer and was necessary for the engine?

Some say it's really bad to turn off a Power Stroke right after working it hard

With enough people attempting to BS cops all the time, If I were a cop I would still write the ticket. It would fall under the weird area of taking accountability for your cars actions. lol.









***newspaper swat***"BAD CAR!!!!!" "YOU SIT THERE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID!!!"

 

[biggs85]

When you use multi viscosity oil (5-20 10-30 ETC) the oil starts off thin so the engine will start easier and the oil will flow faster to all the engine parts, then it thickens to provide better lubricating. Taking off with the oil in its thinner first stage is not what is best for a engine.

So is that why syrup thickens when you heat it in the microwave before you pour it on your pancakes?

 

[F14CRAZY]

Oh poppycock. Only reason I can think of this being bad is if something really bad happens to the truck when you're not watching it (radiator blows, something catches fire...)

 

[Rick]

So is that why syrup thickens when you heat it in the microwave before you pour it on your pancakes?

I'm no chemist, but I'll give that question a shot... Because the molecules are moving faster becoming more densely compacted when heated???

 

[Chew_12]

I'm no chemist, but I'll give that question a shot... Because the molecules are moving faster becoming more densely compacted when heated???

I did an experiment in like the 7th grade and I heated all sorts of different liquids, one of them being syrup. Any liquid that was heated up is actually thinner not thicker.

 

[unclemeat]

I dont want to over simplify by first thing we should note is that we are talking about Newtonian fluids. Non-Newtonian fluids have all kinds of crazy unpredictable phyisical properties.

I am no expert, but I have studied fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. I would never make a statement that all liquids have similar heat viscosity charactistics.

 

[Creager]

what i dont get, is how is letting it idle in park any different then driving it. Its running either way. If one thing is bad at idle, then its going to be 3 times as bad at 3k rpms.

this whole thing is full of fallacey, to the extent where the claim itself is a fallacey. There is no evidence to support this. What it boils down to is it cant really matter, you are going to run your engine anyway.

 

[biggs85]

Sorry I didn't mean to bring up this topic but I was just trying to be facetious when I said that syrup gets thicker as it warms up. All fluids as far as I know get thinnner as they are heated. Same goes for motor oils. 5w30 only means that it will be thinner at colder temperatures than 10w30 will. 10w30 will be thinnner at higher temperatures than 10w40. I'm sure there's a whole other thread about it somewhere.

http://www.autoeducation.com/autoshop101/oil-change.htm