Do you guys warm up your X's??

[cary]

I'm going to chime in here since nobody has stated all the reasons you drive a car once it is started instead of letting it warm up. This applies to any car, not just BMW's.

1) An engine will have full oil pressure and lubercation to all the components within 20 seconds or so, and that is on the coldest morning starts.

2) Sitting and letting an engine warm up is prolonging the time the engine is running rich, which leads to fuel dilution of the oil, extra carbon buildup on the pistons and washdown of the lube on the cylinder walls from the excess gas.

3) Warming up the engine, only warms up the engine, but ignores the rest of the drivetrain that needs to also warm up, tranny, diffs, bearings in the wheels, transfer case.

4) An engine is not truly warmed up until the oil reaches operating temperature (200-220F). This takes about 10-15 minutes of normal driving. All the temp gauge shows is the coolant temp comming out of the engine which heats up and cools faster than the oil.

The best thing to do for any car is start it and drive away easily. No heavy throttle, no running it up to high RPMS. As it warms up you can take the RPMs higher and give it more throttle. If you want to go and really romp on it, give it 10 minutes or so of driving time to fully warm up.

[x5GuyInLA]

Originally Posted by cary

I'm going to chime in here since nobody has stated all the reasons you drive a car once it is started instead of letting it warm up. This applies to any car, not just BMW's.

1) An engine will have full oil pressure and lubercation to all the components within 20 seconds or so, and that is on the coldest morning starts.

2) Sitting and letting an engine warm up is prolonging the time the engine is running rich, which leads to fuel dilution of the oil, extra carbon buildup on the pistons and washdown of the lube on the cylinder walls from the excess gas.

3) Warming up the engine, only warms up the engine, but ignores the rest of the drivetrain that needs to also warm up, tranny, diffs, bearings in the wheels, transfer case.

4) An engine is not truly warmed up until the oil reaches operating temperature (200-220F). This takes about 10-15 minutes of normal driving. All the temp gauge shows is the coolant temp comming out of the engine which heats up and cools faster than the oil.

The best thing to do for any car is start it and drive away easily. No heavy throttle, no running it up to high RPMS. As it warms up you can take the RPMs higher and give it more throttle. If you want to go and really romp on it, give it 10 minutes or so of driving time to fully warm up.

I usually start it up, get situated (seatbelt, hitting accept, putting cell phone in ashtray, etc), which takes about 30 seconds, drive off, then wait until the needle is pointing straight up before I put it into sport mode and start running it up to higher RPMs.

[r6girl]

Originally Posted by cary

I'm going to chime in here since nobody has stated all the reasons you drive a car once it is started instead of letting it warm up. This applies to any car, not just BMW's.

1) An engine will have full oil pressure and lubercation to all the components within 20 seconds or so, and that is on the coldest morning starts.

2) Sitting and letting an engine warm up is prolonging the time the engine is running rich, which leads to fuel dilution of the oil, extra carbon buildup on the pistons and washdown of the lube on the cylinder walls from the excess gas.

3) Warming up the engine, only warms up the engine, but ignores the rest of the drivetrain that needs to also warm up, tranny, diffs, bearings in the wheels, transfer case.

4) An engine is not truly warmed up until the oil reaches operating temperature (200-220F). This takes about 10-15 minutes of normal driving. All the temp gauge shows is the coolant temp comming out of the engine which heats up and cools faster than the oil.

The best thing to do for any car is start it and drive away easily. No heavy throttle, no running it up to high RPMS. As it warms up you can take the RPMs higher and give it more throttle. If you want to go and really romp on it, give it 10 minutes or so of driving time to fully warm up.

great technical info - thanks, cary!

i let my X3 "warm up" only for as long as it takes me to put on my seatbelt and sunglasses, and turn on the radio. i keep the revs down until i've been driving for a few minutes (takes me about 5-7 minutes to get to the freeway on my way to work), and then i move into sport mode...