Engine Warming

You can also get heater elements, like kettles, that plug into a coreplug in the block. Wire that to somewhere you can easily hook up to the mains and you have nice warm coolant. Used primarily in Northern artic like places.

If I had a garage I'd probably get one. Very cheap to do as well.
 
vmondude said:
Short cold journeys are really not good for engines, I hope for your sake you give it a good run in between.
I work in a car auction and we get loads that are choked up due to that.
Especially mazda RX8's! Thats why they've got a bad reliabilty rep. People buy them as a family car and dont drive the bloody things enough or rev them high enough. Its a shame, they're lovely cars :(
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It's a company car, I don't care.
 
I usually go by oil pressure... at cold start I'm looking at 7 pressure, that is the pressure you hit when ragging the accelerator so definitely don't want to be ragging it when it's idling there!

Once it hits 2-3 at idle I drive normally.
 
I know you should drive off straight away to properly warm and engine, the problem is, is 90% of the time at this time of year the windows are fogged/iced up so you need to allow time for that to clear before heading off...
 
Matt82 said:
so true but when it makes it to the classifieds, its the car that people will be clambering over eachother to buy :D
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Absolutely.

This will have full main dealer service history, decent pads and disks, paintwork will be spot on as any scratches and dents are fixes straight away by the body shop.

But it will of spent the past 4 years being thrashed mercilessly as well.
 
atpbx said:
Absolutely.

This will have full main dealer service history, decent pads and disks, paintwork will be spot on as any scratches and dents are fixes straight away by the body shop.

But it will of spent the past 4 years being thrashed mercilessly as well.
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...and will probably go on for years to come without any issues what so ever!

My dads last 2 Mondeos have been ex-rentals that came with 14k and 16k on the clocks. The first went on to 180k needing only an exhaust system before being T-Boned into a write off. The second is still going strong at well over 100k. He refers to this one as being unreliable... it has only needed the EGR cleaning and a split boost pipe replacing :p

I used to think he was mad buying ex rentals but after my experience with a no expense spared, loved more by the previous owner than his own child, Octavia that wasn't shy of throwing big bills I wonder if he has the right idea!
 
lordrobs said:
...and will probably go on for years to come without any issues what so ever!

My dads last 2 Mondeos have been ex-rentals that came with 14k and 16k on the clocks. The first went on to 180k needing only an exhaust system before being T-Boned into a write off. The second is still going strong at well over 100k. He refers to this one as being unreliable... it has only needed the EGR cleaning and a split boost pipe replacing :p

I used to think he was mad buying ex rentals but after my experience with a no expense spared, loved more by the previous owner than his own child, Octavia that wasn't shy of throwing big bills I wonder if he has the right idea!
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I think, mostly, it is down to luck. Obviously you can perhaps decrease the likelihood of a car chucking bills at you by making sure it has been properly maintained but at the end of the day, you may end up with less problems from a car with no service history and that has been ragged to bits than one that has been meticulously looked after.
 
Depot next to j15, M6.
Start truck, hook up trailer (having turned engine off, H&S rule) start again,pull loaded trailer up steep hill to exit depot, use full throttle to enable said truck to pull loaded trailer, over the 5 years I've worked at this site, I'm yet to hear of an engine failure, despite many of the trucks in question being the far side of 300k miles these days.

In short, vehicles be them cars or trucks,are designed to be used (& abused) from cold.

That said, I always go easy on my car for the first few miles, even when running late for said work! :o
 
A truck's redline is something like 2k RPM is it not? I'd have thought the RPM of the engine is also a factor in cold engines
 
acemastr said:
A truck's redline is something like 2k RPM is it not? I'd have thought the RPM of the engine is also a factor in cold engines
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My Scania R440 redlines @2400 rpm, that said, fluff a downshift and it'll still go bang if you revved it to say ~3k RPM.
As already mentioned, it's not engine speed generally speaking that does the harm, it's engine load.

The bigger the engine - big meaning > 10 litre - the lower the overall RPM, the principle remains the same though.
 
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