In most conditions, warming up is not necessary. However, in very cold weather, the oil can become very viscous. Warming up the car has nothing to do with "spreading the oil around", it's to heat up the oil to decrease its viscosity. Cold oil puts stress on your engine because it's harder for the parts to move around. Still, even though it's not a bad idea, it's really not that helpful anymore with modern engines and oils. This is old-fashioned advice that is mostly out of date.

 

Best policy is to start the car, then get settled in. Drive off in 30 - 60 seconds. take it a bit easy till the car starts to warm up. Do not drive it hard until you're at normal temps- one of the hardest things on an engine, particularly a turbo, is thermal stress in the combustion chamber when the rest of the motor (and the oil)is bone cold.
Speaking of cold, don't you Northeast guys have anything to say about the 2.0 engines warmup time? I've never had a car so slow to get the water up to temp - takes 3 times as long compared with my BMW's or Volvo. 5 Miles or so ona 30 degree morning. Any comments?

 

The warm up is just like a diesel. It takes longer based on the technology of the engine. It is a very efficient engine which will take a lot longer to warm. At least it's not an air-cooled engine! I had to keep and ice scrapper inside my old beetle during the winter in Colorado.

Scrap, shift, scrap, shift, breath.......repeat LOL

Cheers!

 

Seconds for the oil to get where its got to go. Like 2-3 seconds. then start driving. Dont go by the temp guage as far as operating temp either. I dont rev over 3k until the OIL temp needle has moved up some. Done.

 

I wait til the RPMs go below 1000 at idle (maybe 15-20 seconds). Then take it easy on the throttle til oil temp rises (2-3 miles for my 3.2).

 

I live in Canada and these days is around -20 (Celsius), temperature with windchill is around -35C. I park outside and plug (AC power)my car overnight to heatthe block. So, you're saying it's not reason for worming up engine.
I warm up a car 10-15 minutes before driving and if I drive 5 minutes temperature indicator didn't even move away. How long does it take to worming up the engine? Just exapmle, some other friends have older and cheaper cars, they start car with no worming up engine, and after few minutes you can feel the warm air. It's probably one more reason to hate my car.

 

+1

This is what I do too. When I get in the car, I make a point to start it, then get situated (seatbelt, lights, climate controls, plug in the iPod, drink, etc.) allowing the car 30-40 seconds to get the oil flowing and the RPMs to stabilize. Then I keep it under 3k RPM until it reaches operating temp. Not hard to do if you just throw it in D and don't floor it. It takes me 5 mins from my house to get to any road where I can really open it up anyways, and by that time the engine is warmed up.

BTW, I'm in Florida, so the car never gets too cold overnight.

 

Regarding the question of warm-up before driving: 1. Synthetic oils have a much lower cold pour point then straight dino-based oils, so they flow much more quickly throughout the engine. 2. The car warms up MUCH faster under load. 3. Idling while the car is cold is putting out muchmore pollution and quite wasteful of expensive fuel.

I start the car, put on my seat belt, and back (slowly) out of the driveway, then keep the throttle light and the shift points low for the first few miles. BTW, with auto headlights, rain-sensing wipers, auto climate control, no mirrors to adjust since I'm the only driver of this car, there is very little to do to "get ready."

I'm surprised by the complaints in this thread about slow warm-up. It seems to be about the same as my previous BMW 325i. Our winter temps here in the Pacific NW are typically 35-40 F in the morning. The start to most of my days is a 2.5 mile (5-7 minutes) drive, mostly downhill to drop my daughter off at the ferry, so not much engine load. By time we're at the ferry, the temp gauge is at the one-quarter mark and moving quickly, and the Climate Control (almost always in "Auto") has started to blow warm air. I'm pretty comfortable and the car is fully warm by the time I'm picking up the first guy in my car pool (12-15 minutes after starting the car). I thought I'd miss heated seats, but the warm-up is quick enough that I'm questioning the value of spending $$ for aftermarket cheek-heaters.

Did you know that on "Auto" the climate control system won't start the fan until it senses that heat is available?

 

Our current daily cars are an A3, a BMW 325, and a 5 cyl Volvo. The BMW and the Volvo warm up twice as fast as the A3. I'm not sure why, though it could have to do with extra water and plumbing for the Turbo and intercooler. At any rate, the A3 is excrutiatingly slow to warm up, taking about 3 miles at 40 degrees, versus 1.5 miles in theother cars.

 

start it and drive it ( waiting for it to heat up causes many problems ) its all down to oil pressure when the engine is idling there is little and called cooling because the engine isn't working as it was designed to do ( a turbo without thrust is a carburetor )