OT: I grew up believing this myth about cars
Papi_Chulo
Miami, FL (or the nearest big-booty club)
When it's frigid outside and you have to drive to some sort of destination, there's only one solution to fighting the ridiculous cold: Warm up the car. Just start it up a few minutes before hopping in, giving your cabin and your engine time to warm up before hitting the road. Plus, it's supposed to be good for the life of your engine, right?
Wrong! Warming up your car in winter before driving it is actually terrible for your engine. According to Popular Mechanics, driving your car right away is the fastest way to warm up your engine, and will actually prolong the life of your engine instead of letting it sit idly before driving. Answering the old question on whether you should warm up your car.
The reasoning has to do with how modern internal combustion engines work. By letting your car sit to warm up, it's actually putting extra fuel into the combustion chamber, which can get onto your cylinder walls. Because gasoline is an excellent solvent, too much on your cylinder walls can dissolve the oil that lubricates your cylinders, leading to shorter life on crucial components.
Of course, hopping into a cold car is never a fun task. Although driving your car will actually warm up your engine faster than idling, it still means driving for a period of time in a cold vehicle. And, it also means dealing with the frost on your car windows before they warm up. Fortunately, you can easily defrost your windows in 30 seconds with this simple car window defrosting trick.
Now if warming up your car in winter is actually terrible for your engine, why did people even do this in the first place? According to USA Today, this practices comes from the use of cars with carburetors fuel delivery system that preceded fuel injection that did require warming up beforehand. Some people would have to wait up to 10 minutes before even getting into a car, deeming it safe enough to drive with a warmed up engine. Nevertheless, cars and technology have drastically changed since the 1960s, which means this old practice is no longer required.
Instead, just give it a minute and start with an easy drive. Flooring it right away obviously isn't the solution, but easing yourself into a drive will help to warm your engine faster than you originally thought.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/ownershi…
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
39 comments
Latest
There’s nothing more frustrating than hopping into your car when you’re running late, and looking at a windshield covered in frost. It’s going to minutes, maybe even an hour, to make sure that car window is completely defrosted before having to head out—which is not what you want on a day that your alarm clock fails you. Is there a better way to clear off a car window?
Why, yes, there actually is. There’s a super easy trick on how to defrost your car window in mere seconds, decreasing your wait time and increasing your chances of getting where you need to go at a reasonable hour.
Thanks to a clever Ken Weathers, a meteorologist for WTAE, your prayers have been answered. Here’s what you do to learn how to defrost windows: Find an empty spray bottle that you can fill with this solution (great to keep in the car for later). Fill up a third of the bottle with water, and the other two-thirds with rubbing alcohol. That’s right—just water and rubbing alcohol. And it works like absolute magic.
Why does this work so well? Because rubbing alcohol actually has a freezing point of 128 degrees below freezing.
Now others have found clever solutions when it comes to knowing how to defrost windows, or keeping your car window from freezing altogether. 10Tv.com actually suggests to use kitty litter on your window. Experts suggest that if you fill up a sock with kitty litter and leave it in your car, it will suck up any moisture and avoid frost from attaching to your front windows. They also suggest using shaving cream when your car windows fog up, hand sanitizer to unfreeze your locks, and cooking spray on your doors. You could even cover your windshield wipers with socks to avoid freezing those out as well.
Frost is obviously not the only problem when it comes to keeping your front, and back, car windows clean for your drive. We have a few tips to help you out with other simple car window fixes, like how to repair your back window defogger and a windshield washer repair.
https://www.familyhandyman.com/automotiv…
What the hell do you know about winter? Yeah, your 40 miles north of me! :)
Shadowcat, I get around that freezing rain scenario by buying a residence with a 2-car garage. Humor aside, I'm guessing that you encountered freezing rain on your drive home from ATL airport. I'll tell you about my late night arrival from business trip to find my car caked with ice sometime. That was a real bitch replete with me having to spray travel size cologne bottle on door locks to get key in lock, then warming up engine to run defrost enough to start to melt ice for useable scraping (deice spray was practically useless), then spinning out 2 times before I just stayed in hotel overnight rather than drive 20 plus miles in freezing rain. Fortunately, freezing rain changed to normal rain after sunrise.
If cigarettes are bad for you, why can you buy them so easily?
Was yours a rhetorical question?
I hear a real quick way to defrost the windshield is to throw some boiling water on it.
If it is cold and dark, head lights, heater fan, rear window defroster, all help it warm up via the alternator. Water warms up pretty fast no matter what. Exhaust port heat. Oil will follow.
If the car doesn't idle well until warm, that is a separate problem. Should fix it. But with modern fuel injected cars, not really a problem.
Stationary warm up is just senseless engine hours and fuel use.
Airplanes, heavy trucks, maybe different. But my car says not to warm it up in the owner's manual.
SJG
Who are you trying to fool creep of course there's no need to warm up a Huffy bike.
SJG
SJG
Nicki Minaj
https://nrg.radio/hiphop/wp-content/uplo…