Idling hurts your car? Yahoo article.......

[Revo1]

Originally Posted by Big Brunsy

yeah, says all of the anti-idling agencies

shut ur car off if it's gonna idle for more than 10 sec...HA. I don't see any of them agencies they cited being from the cold climate. I'll let my truck run for a half hour while i go grocery shopping.




soooo....basically they are saying us Chevy owners are technoligally challenged....and dumb.

That's precisely what they're saying... And apparently we aren't smart enough to use the internet to read their crap articles.

[Mark Myles]

Originally Posted by Russell James

On my pickup, in the winter mornings, I do two remote starts. 20 mins seems ideal to a nice toasty interior and clear windshield. Al Gore can kiss a duck.

The temperature is 7 this morning...I let my truck warm up for 30 min before I drove it. It's now idling while I play on the computer. I've done this since 2004. I have 148,000 on my suburban.....it hurts nothing. Anyone that believes excessive idling will ruin their engine is "chasing windmills".

Some people will confuse normal wear & tear with anything out of the normal operation of a vehicle. All vehicles need maintenance regardless of how they're driven.

M

[heRS]

I say ban drive-throughs. There has got to be more idling at drive throughs going on than anywhere else. Bring back the old-fashioned drive-ins with carhops (create more jobs) and window trays.

[bher20]

Originally Posted by Revo1

Don't believe ANYTHING you read on Yahoo. Again, NOTHING. Yahoo will run anything that they think will get them hits.

After reading this article, I closed my yahoo mail and changed my homepage to MSN.

Hum thats kinda odd, I've only had Chevy's and I just graduated college with a computer science degree, so Im pretty sure I use the internet.

I have let my truck idle for quite a while waiting to go to my classes, and 120,000 miles later my truck basically runs like it did with 120 miles on her. Just my 2 cents.

[derklug]

Driving a vehicle does make it warm up quicker, but how long will you wait idling for the police to show up when you rear end a car because you couldn't see through the frosted windshield? Put the tree-huggers and the safety nannies in a cage match, winner to determine wether to warm up or not.

[Morepwr]

Originally Posted by yellowLS

+1 Engines are built to run.

[Oldrocker]

Originally Posted by 76z28

But an engine at operating temperatures is the same at 55mph and 0mph...if its working correctly

Not exactly true. The engine is loaded at 55 mph and cylinder temperatures will be warmer than an idling non-loaded engine. It is also not good on the catalytic converters to idle for hours at a time, they don't get hot enough to light off and become susceptible to deposits forming that will clog the converters.

[Russell James]

Originally Posted by Oldrocker

Not exactly true. The engine is loaded at 55 mph and cylinder temperatures will be warmer than an idling non-loaded engine. It is also not good on the catalytic converters to idle for hours at a time, they don't get hot enough to light off and become susceptible to deposits forming that will clog the converters.

Cop cars must really have a lot of cylinder wall and cat converter problems then. Nope, they do just fine. There are fleet vehicles like cop cars, taxis, utility trucks... that sit there and idle all day long. And rack up 100,000 + miles easily.

If idling is causing a problem, something else is wrong with that car.

[BlueSteele]

3. Idling hurts the car

According to the Hinkle Charitable Foundation's Anti-Idling Primer, idling forces an engine "to operate in a very inefficient and gasoline-rich mode that, over time, can degrade the engine's performance and reduce mileage."


The Campaign for an Idle-Free New York City points out that idling causes carbon residues to build up inside the engine, which reduces its efficiency.
[ Related: Five secrets to make your car last longer and save you money. ]


Hmm....then what's the point of the IDLE air control valve?

[skittleoncrack]

Sounds like some enviromentalist scam..

btw my SS warms up quick compared to the other vehicles I've owned. at 40 degrees outside I can start the car and 5mins later walk out and it's already blowing nice warm air..

and for the record.. not idleing some vehicles before you drive them can be damaging.. try jumping in a freezing cold turbo'd vehicle and start romping on it...

[Oldrocker]

Originally Posted by Russell James

Cop cars must really have a lot of cylinder wall and cat converter problems then. Nope, they do just fine. There are fleet vehicles like cop cars, taxis, utility trucks... that sit there and idle all day long. And rack up 100,000 + miles easily.

If idling is causing a problem, something else is wrong with that car.

What I said about catalytic converters is true, unless I was misinformed in my GM training classes. I haven't worked in a city garage so I cant tell you about how well the catalytic converters hold up on cop cars, you know they can replace them without letting you know. And just letting your car idle for no good reason is stupid.

[Russell James]

The dealership I was a tech at for many years serviced many fleets including cop cars, taxis, limos, utility vehicles... We had some customers with trucks and 110 inverters running power tools all day at construction sites. Countless customers that like me, warm their cars up in the winter... Can't ever recall seeing idling the cause of any rash of cat conv failures.

The engine is just sitting there running. The engine management system is keeping it running at the proper AFR, temp... The cats could care less whether its moving down the road or not.

I'm warming my truck up for 10-15 minutes tomorrow A.M. Same thing I've done every winter for decades on countless vehicles. Will my cats shet the bed tomorrow. Highly doubtfull.

There is classroom and internet theory, and then real world reality.

[senadin]

Yeah all those folks who live in California (or other fairly warm states) and whine about iddling can kiss my Camaro's ass.

The forecast for tonite/tomorrow morning is about -15 F....

I am gona iddle and warm up my car as much as i want to!, Always have, always will.

[Diabel1969]

Originally Posted by senadin

Yeah all those folks who live in California (or other fairly warm states) and whine about iddling can kiss my Camaro's ass.

The forecast for tonite/tomorrow morning is about -15 F....

I am gona iddle and warm up my car as much as i want to!, Always have, always will.

I agree! Obviously they've never even heard an engine in a car/truck start at temp's below 0, where they sound like just the act of turning over is going to cause detonation. They should run a survey in some colder climates, and then write something more realistic.

On a side note. A long time ago, I had to do and engine swap from a worn out old plow truck to a car. The engine was smoking a bit, and actually needed to be re-ringed as the rings for some reason didn't seat properly from non stop ideling time.