I usually have to idle at stop lights/drive throughs/traffic as well...
300k honda civic on mobil 1 0-20
- Thread starter palehorseidaho
- Start date
I usually have to idle at stop lights/drive throughs/traffic as well...
Triple_Se7en
$50 Site Donor 2024
You know your wife well. Keep feeding her vehicle good lubricating oils. Even under the Christmas Tree..... wait, don't do that
Keep the wife out of the jewelry stores and that will balance their wrongdoings behind the wheel.
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301k on the factory fill and never let it idle more than 10 seconds before I drive it, redlining it at every gearchange.
Okeedokee dude......
As with so many topics in life, people tend to exaggerate on both extremes.
There's actually good reasons to allow some warm-up but there's also the excessive or unnecessary. The engine and it's parts benefit from having some temperature before taking off(even if slowly). The catalytic converters also benefit, albeit this happens rather quickly.
...and then there's the automatic transmission. Ever notice how your auto trans doesn't want to shift if you just start the car from fully cold and take off? Can you guess why? You might think, you might even swear that this is not a problem but you'd be wrong. You are in fact putting undue stress and trying to force it to do something it's simply not ready to do, it needs a bit of temperature, although it doesn't need to be fully or at the normal operating temperature.
So how do you know when to take off easy and gently? There's two parameters that will tell you and these apply no matter what ambient temperature you live in.(although in the super cold i'd be more careful and give just a bit more time). The first is the idle. Many cars when fully cold will have an idle above the norm. When the idle is normal you know at least there's some temperature. The other is the (water) temp needle. It doesn't have to be fully normal but if it's about half way you know there's some temperature. If you wait about two minutes after these two things, chances are good the auto trans has some temperature and will shift normal. If it doesn't, use your judgement and wait a little more next time. Ultimately, i'd use your auto trans to tell when it's ok to take off gently. The exact minutes it takes is irrelevant but here in Florida it's roughly 5-7 minutes, depending. ...but i don't time it and don't care really, i care what's best for the car.
If your having fuel dilution issues, your going to get that anyway and should be acting against that through other means.
As far as the OP, i don't believe anything being said there. The key for me is what was said about the spark plugs. Ask Honda what they think about leaving the OEM plugs to 300k miles.
There's actually good reasons to allow some warm-up but there's also the excessive or unnecessary. The engine and it's parts benefit from having some temperature before taking off(even if slowly). The catalytic converters also benefit, albeit this happens rather quickly.
...and then there's the automatic transmission. Ever notice how your auto trans doesn't want to shift if you just start the car from fully cold and take off? Can you guess why? You might think, you might even swear that this is not a problem but you'd be wrong. You are in fact putting undue stress and trying to force it to do something it's simply not ready to do, it needs a bit of temperature, although it doesn't need to be fully or at the normal operating temperature.
So how do you know when to take off easy and gently? There's two parameters that will tell you and these apply no matter what ambient temperature you live in.(although in the super cold i'd be more careful and give just a bit more time). The first is the idle. Many cars when fully cold will have an idle above the norm. When the idle is normal you know at least there's some temperature. The other is the (water) temp needle. It doesn't have to be fully normal but if it's about half way you know there's some temperature. If you wait about two minutes after these two things, chances are good the auto trans has some temperature and will shift normal. If it doesn't, use your judgement and wait a little more next time. Ultimately, i'd use your auto trans to tell when it's ok to take off gently. The exact minutes it takes is irrelevant but here in Florida it's roughly 5-7 minutes, depending. ...but i don't time it and don't care really, i care what's best for the car.
If your having fuel dilution issues, your going to get that anyway and should be acting against that through other means.
As far as the OP, i don't believe anything being said there. The key for me is what was said about the spark plugs. Ask Honda what they think about leaving the OEM plugs to 300k miles.
Iridiums look good even after 200,000 miles. If dual iridium 300k should be possible. If single iridium the ground strap will be gone.
Actually letting off the throttle to get a transmission to upshift can also be used to teach your tcm to shift earlier if it's one of those transmissions that learn your driving style. Slowly increasing throttle with rpm (to prevent an upshift) can teach a transmission to hold gears, and flooring it everywhere will teach your transmission to shift at higher rpm. Once I taught my transmission to hold 4th gear until I wasn't accelerating anymore but then I drove normal too many times and it forgot. This is off topic, i know, so I'll shut up now up now.
Driving an automatic while it's cold won't damage it, unless you're driving it hard. If an auto is hesitant to shift when it's cold, i will let off the throttle partially, wait for it to shift, and then resume accelerating.
Actually letting off the throttle to get a transmission to upshift can also be used to teach your tcm to shift earlier if it's one of those transmissions that learn your driving style. Slowly increasing throttle with rpm (to prevent an upshift) can teach a transmission to hold gears, and flooring it everywhere will teach your transmission to shift at higher rpm. Once I taught my transmission to hold 4th gear until I wasn't accelerating anymore but then I drove normal too many times and it forgot. This is off topic, i know, so I'll shut up now up now.
Pale seems to have stopped, dropped and rolled on this thread.
He's busy working on a new IP/troll account.
I personally wouldn't take someone's word as proof. But if it happens to inspire confidence... Happy motoringThere’s the proof 0w20 doesn’t kill engines. Happy motoring
There's a lot to question about that post.
Patman
Staff member
That's actually kinda believable, I'm still on the original plugs in my Civic and I've got 145,000 miles on them. My fuel economy is still incredible (over the last 6k my average is 45 MPG) and the engine is perfectly smooth. I'm not changing my plugs until I notice a drop in fuel economy or a rough idle.
All I can say is good luck getting those plugs out after 300K. This coming from someone who has done 100K changes on many vehicles, including the ones in my signature.