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1. 

   dtroutma said, 3 months ago

   Only reason to “warm up” a car is for buttocks,not the engines in modern cars. For $18 you can buy a seat heater that plugs into the cigarette lighter, works fine, and pays for itself in a couple days worth of idling, and doesn’t pollute.
2. 

   Ottodesu said, 3 months ago

   I used to live and work in tropical Asia. The drivers would idle the cars for about 45-60 minutes every morning. It was damned hard to try to convince them that cars that never get cooler than 22 C do not need more than a few seconds before driving off, if that.
3. 

   mikefive said, 3 months ago

   I read years ago that you do need to let a car idle for about 30 seconds after you start it. Long enough to ensure that all portions of the engine have received oil circulation. Sounded logical to me.
4. 

   Gore Bane said, 3 months ago

   Warm up your car for 30 seconds, folks. Pay no attention to the hysterical Jen.
5. 

   Rockngolfer said, 3 months ago

   I run mine until the tach drops to 1,000.
6. 

   I Play One On TV said, 3 months ago

   What say you, Trusted Mechanic? It makes sense to allow an engine to idle long enough to allow the oil to circulate before adding rpms, but who’s to know with today’s engineering?

   However, the point is still a good one. It drives me batty to hear people complaining about the price of gas, when they’re using their air conditioners when it’s 70 degrees out. Another neat trick I’ve seen way too often is to leave passengers in the car while shopping. I can’t tell you the number of suburban assault vehicles I walk by in parking lots in the summer with their engines running and the windows open.
7. 

   mickey1339 said, 3 months ago

   I asked the “how long to warm up the engine” to a friend who was an engineer and a designer of racing engines. His response was, "it only takes a few seconds for oil to get to the heads of the engine. Drive normally until the temperature is in the normal range and that’s it. There doesn’t need to be a significant warm up unless you want the heater to be pumping out hot air…
8. 

   Tigger said, 3 months ago

   What about Gridlocked Traffic?
9. 

   I Play One On TV said, 3 months ago

   @Tigger

   Well done, Tigger. Gridlock does several things; it adds air pollution, whether some posters believe in that or not. It feeds frustration and anger/road rage. It wastes gasoline. It increases commuting time and therefore reduces time available to get things done.

   The best way to reduce all of these (and more) effects of gridlock is to improve our infrastructure, which was what I was led to believe that the Stimulus was supposed to do. If it’s happening, it’s not happening around here.

   Regardless, once again, we’re at the point of having finite funds and seemingly infinite wants and needs. Once again, someone needs to create priorities that make sense and move forward to accomplish well-understood goals.

   Once again, it ain’t getting done. Blame whoever you want to, because everyone is complicit. Remember, with those fat salaries/benefits/pensions come power and responsibility to use it wisely. Unfortunately, people are taking those benefits and using their time in office to campaign or make speeches.

   The Congressman who represents my district has not responded to my question about why, with all the crap flying around, he feels the need to read the Constitution aloud on the House floor. I can read the Constitution myself; I have on many occasions. That’s not what he was elected for. The time for grandstanding is long past. I will again vote against him again in two years; I do my part.
10. 

    Darren Blair said, 3 months ago

    I’m a courier, and so I’m pretty much obligated to leave my vehicle idling when making drops; with as old as my vehicle is (1990), it doesn’t make sense for me to shut the engine off just for a 30+ second delivery.
11. 

    Randy_B said, 3 months ago

    @I Play One On TV

    Get a car that can shut its engine off when it’s not moving. Hybrids do that, and a growing number of regular gas-engine models do that now too.
12. 

    churchillwasright said, 3 months ago

    @I Play One On TV

    I’m PROUD that I drive you batty. I drive my car with the air conditioning on and the windows open. I drive (for the most part) for a living, and I feel safer when I can hear all the ambient noise and traffic around me.
    
    PS: I drive a Prius. I bought it for purely economic reasons, not environmental. I can hardly wait to see how much it will cost to replace the battery when the time comes. And studies confirm that hybids, when all is said and done, do NOT reduce overall pollution.
    
    Hmmm, had to revise my post, since you posted twice…
    
    Don’t worry, dude. Obama is planning on spending billions on a Jetson’s car, a division of Government Motors. He neglected to tell us this during his latest campaign speech on how Sequestration Cuts will result in rabid illegal alien terrorist dogs, raised on a diet of IKEA horsemeat Swedish meatballs, rolled by child labor, will make their way into our food supply. Without the human shackles of roads, there will no longer be gridlock.in your Utopian Society (of course, the unintended consequences of when George Jetson crashes into his boss Cosmo Spacely’s vehicle high above the terrain, raining burning shards of metallic debris on the unsuspecting citizenry below was redacted from the final DOT report.
    
    PSS: It’s none of your business if someone is sitting in their car with the engine idling. Why don’t you do what The Great and Mighty Mayor Bloomberg did in NY when confronted with the hypocrisy that his limousine was idling with the A/C on? He had a custom made window air conditioner made that could wheel up to his limo window.
    
    Poster boys for Limousine Liberals.
    
    [Note to Self: How are you going to keep your New Year’s Resolution of not wasting so much time on this Site if you respond to such a lame toon and post? Show a little discernment.]
13. 

    Ajax 4Hire said, 3 months ago

    Not all of us can afford a modern-day car with a modern engine.

    Some of us are joblessly enjoying the Obama recovery at home. This is the new American Idle.
14. 

    Randy_B said, 3 months ago

    @churchillwasright

    When your Prius needs a new hybrid battery, spend a few hundred to get a used one from a junker that died for some other reason. They often last for more than ten years.
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