Here's a quick method I use to warm up an automatic car in the driveway much faster than the usual 15 minutes of engine idling-it's brutal, but effective...

I run the engine up against the torque converter, so applying a proper load to the engine which avoids extended idling at low speed.

I start the engine, engage the autobox & manually select a higher gear (2nd or 3rd) to minimise the drivetrain load. Then I hold the car on the brakes with the left foot & using the right foot, rev the engine to around 1200-1500rpm.

This generates a lot more heat in the engine than at idle & also in the churning fluid in the torque converter. Once the temp gauge is at a quarter then I reduce the engine speed to avoid overheating the transmission. The transmission fluid will be channelled through the oil cooler in the radiator anyway, which will avoid overheating & also add more heat to the engine coolant.

Using this method I can get my XJR's engine warmed up in less than 5 minutes & it's also better than just letting the engine idle for ages-I immediately put the engine under a normal transmission load & raise the revs as well.

It's a bit brutal, but it works & no gearboxes were harmed in the making of this suggestion-although you do this at your own risk

 

Agreed on the "brutal" part!

Cheers
DD

 

I would worry about my foot slipping off the brake and running through the back wall of my garage, lol!
Vector

 

I also leave the handbrake on full & select one of the higher gears to minimise the torque at the wheels trying to move the car. If your handbrake is good & you choose 3rd gear, even if your foot slips off the brake pedal then the car won't surge forward uncontrollably...

Of course, if your foot slipped off the brake pedal-which is possible on a wet or icy day-then you just come off the gas pedal pretty sharpish & everything settles back down to idle speed with the car in a high gear & the handbrake on-easy peasy

It is a bit of a crude method though-but it's highly effective & if you dialled up 1200rpm instead of 1500rpm it's not quite as intimidating

 

whats wrong with just driving a bit easy for a few minutes rather than sit in the driveway at 1500rpm?

 

Nothing wrong with that at all-but sometimes if I haven't used the car for a few days & it's covered with snow, then a fast warm-up in the driveway is good way of getting heat quickly for window demisting etc.

Due to the number of cars I have & their parking arrangements, it's not always possible to just run them around the block as I have to move other cars out of the way first-which means I have to either warm up the other cars fully or take them all for a drive around the block just to get one car out, which is just not practical.

So I came up with this 'quick heat' method, which is effective if you live in a small cramped country like the UK & have several cars all parked up together, with no easy way to get the ones at the back out on the road without moving all the ones at the front out the way first

 

There is ONE major metropolitan area in the world, that is by many considered to be the coldest in the world (in the States for sure!),.....Minneapolis.

And how it's done over there? No brutality. Car is garaged, there is a magnetic block heater attached to the oil pan, the cord is routed safely through the engine compartment, and the plug is protruding through the grill, fixed in place with a zip tie. It stays there through the winter. Once the car is parked (like after work), the owner plugs it in right away, to the extension cord dedicated for it, and waiting.

There is another cord on the side, and a small electric space heater waiting as well. The space heater is placed on the floor of the car, plugged in, and the door closed. This cord is plugged into the timer, set to turn the heater on about 30 minutes before the take off in the morning.

And that's it. Temps in Minneapolis can go down to -30-40F easily, and without the block heater, very few cars would start, and putting the enormous load on the battery and the starter (at that temperature, oil is like a refrigerated butter!). This way the oil stays warm, and the space heater provides toasty warm cabin when needed.

The engine reaches the operating temperature rather quickly, and there is no need for any brutality to the transmission. Magnetic oil heaters are cheap, and so are the electric space heaters.

 

Wow this is just so wrong on so many levels. There's no need to sit and warm up an engine in any car prior to driving. This just wastes gas.

Accelerating the warm up period by 'brake torquing' an automatic transmission is a disaster waiting to happen.

Selecting a higher gear does not reduce strain on the drive train. Most gearboxes start off in 1st gear irrespective of what gear the driver has selected. manually selecting 3rd gear simply means that it will go no higher than 3rd gear, but still starts off in 1st, then shifts to 2nd and then finally 3rd.

The worst worst worst thing that can be done to a car is running the engine for short periods just to shuffle them around. Please find a better solution. Many of us have more cars than parking spots. I'd find a way of keeping snow and ice off the car while parked rather than abusing it simply to clear the windows.

 

My XJR is under a carport & not in a garage. I also use this method on my old BMW's and they sit outside on the public road, so I can't drape cables over the pavement as people regularly walk dogs up & down and push prams along the pavement...

 

Sorry-disagree with you there. This method has worked fine for me for years & has never lunched an autobox or engine. If you read the vehicle handbook properly to learn the operation of the gearbox, then you can easily select a higher gear. Virtually all modern automatics have 'winter' modes which start out in a higher gear...

As for a 'disaster waiting to happen', well I'm still waiting-after several years in fact.

The BMW gearboxes, for instance, have 3 modes-one of which is a true manual mode where '3' means starting out in '3', not starting out in '1' & then being limited to '3'. I verify it by observing the behaviour of the car on the road & which gears it selects in which modes-so my facts are well researched & carefully observed.

I knew & expected a knee-jerk negative reaction to what may seem an 'unnatural' operation, but let me say quite categorically that the facts were carefully checked beforehand & no gearbox or engine has lunched itself in all the years I've had big-engined automatics & done this.

I do not run the engine at 'wide open throttle' or at the maximum stall speed of the torque converter-it is no more stressful than accelerating a stationary cold car away from the lights with part-throttle, and is infinitely better than just letting an engine stagger along at idle speed for an hour.

The vehicle has a temperature gauge, so you can see how quickly the engine is warming up & there's no reason to blow anything up. The vehicles will naturally idle at around the 700-800rpm mark anyway-even in 'D', so an intitial 1500rpm reducing to 1200rpm with a cold gearbox in a high gear is not really going to send brake bands, multi-plate clutches & epicyclic geartrains into orbit

 

That all depends on the gearbox operation-which you have to study beforehand. My XJR starts in 2nd gear in 'Normal' mode, unless you are in kickdown. I run the engine up to 1500rpm initially on a part throttle & then reduce to around 1200rpm on a light throttle-it comes nowhere near the pressure required to trigger a kickdown into 1st gear.

All my BMW's had 3-mode gearboxes where the 'manual' mode was a true manual mode, as in selecting '3' meant you moved off in '3' from a standing start. In 'Normal' mode, selecting '3' would indeed mean that the gearbox started out in '1' and then moved up to '3' but no further.

But in 'manual' mode it will start from a standstill in whatever gear is selected-that is obvious as the car barely accelerates from standstill when the higher gear is selected in 'manual' mode, as it's in the higher gear

 

And 5 out of 6 participants of Russian Roulette live to play again. I think the common expression used in the US is 'hold ma beer and watch this!'

 

I do like the 'hold ma beer & watch this!' analogy though-I'm also reminded of the quote by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, 'Do I feel lucky today? Well do ya, punk'

There is method in the madness though-if an XJR gearbox is capable of handling repeated onslaughts of 387lbf/ft of torque on a hot engine/gearbox combination in 1st gear, then using part throttle-and hence much less torque-in 2nd gear for a few minutes with a stone-cold engine/gearbox combination is somewhat less stressful.

It's not something I do every day-only on a couple of occasions in the coldest winter months when the car is snowed under, needs some heat & the street/parking situation is a ballache to get the Jag out on the public road.

The parking on our street can be chronically bad & cramped on numerous occasions-the get the Jag out the driveway means moving the old Diesel BMW out the way first, so it would then need a warm-up as well.

The Bentley's even worse-it sits behind the Jag & so to get the Bentley out means moving the Diesel BMW out the way of the drive, then moving the Jag & finding somewhere in our cramped road to park them while I run back to fire up the Bentley before some **** parks across the driveway!

I don't use the method with the Bentley though, as you can't avoid starting in 1st gear in any gearbox mode-plus the engine is so big & generates so much heat of it's own, that raising the revs is just showing off...

I do take your concerns though & it does indeed sound like a brutal & unnecessary method-but due to my own particular location & parking arrangements there are the odd occasions when there is no other suitable way, if the car hasn't been started for a while & getting it out on the public road is a right fiddle...

It's not something I do every day-just a couple of times a month in the coldest winter months if I have to. Normally, I start the engine & just drive it straight onto the road & don't come back until the engine has warmed up fully & been driven for at least 5 miles on a hot engine, with periods of full throttle & high rpm.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds-I'll use 1500rpm for about 30 seconds from a cold start & then drop down to around 1200rpm, which is not a very fast speed really, compared to an 800rpm idle etc...

As for Russian Roulette-don't get me started on Russia lol

I've been there 5 times now & what they can do to their cars makes my treatment above seem like gentle Sunday servicing

 

wouldnt having the car in N produce the same result in terms of heating as having the car in gear?

 

Thank you for this post! As I lived MANY years in Europe but not since 2000, I "forgot" how hard it can be over there. Your post made me appreciate what I have today. 70F outside, not a cloud in the sky, 140 acres, five car garage, and two barns (one for the horses, and one for toys). Never have to shuffle the cars, no street parking, no snow (we do get some, but it melts by Noon),......I don't think I could live over there any more.

 

Stop it now-I can feel an urgent application for a Green Card coming all over me

Yes, I know all about the huge wide open spaces in the USA-I spent a longish touring holiday over there in 2005, mostly in California but also Las Vegas & across the Mojave Desert.

Couldn't believe the SPACE!

Have to confess-as unpatriotic as it may sound-that whilst holidaying in the USA & soaking up the sun, space & blue skies, that I didn't really think much about this small damp island on the other side of the Atlantic that I had to return to...

It's amazing what a bit of sun, space & blue sky does for one's general well-being after over 40 years in a country where there's nothing but wind & rain 250 days a year & mixed bags of murk for another 100-a grey cloudy sky is actually classed as a nice day over here

It gets comically cramped in my road as I'm in the centre of town-if I don't park a car on the road outside near the driveway to reserve some 'swing' space to manouevre the Jag or Bentley out the driveway, then someone will park either right up to the driveway or across it & block me in totally.

So it was not always possible to just jump in the Jag or Bentley for a relaxed spin round the block to warm them up-so in the worst of the winter months I used this 'forceful' method of warming up the Jag in the driveway on a couple of occasions when there was no other option.

Of course, it's fabulously open & spacious up in Scotland but the climate is even more grim up there-especially in the North-West Highlands which get the full force of the Atlantic storms sweeping in from the West...

We do, however, get beautiful summer days on about 6 occasions in a year

 

Leaving the car in 'N' will not place any load on the engine, so it will still take longer to warm up the engine. By engaging a gear & raising the engine speed, the gearbox & torque converter place a heavy load on the engine which makes it work harder-drawing more fuel through & generating more heat.

The torque converter places a 'drag' load on the engine if the gearbox side (the turbine) is held stationary while the engine side (the impeller) churns the fluid around in an attempt to make the turbine spin with it.

In 'N', the turbine side of the torque converter is not clamped stationary by an engaged gear with a static car held on the brakes & so is free to rotate with the impeller-so there is no 'drag' load on the engine & it will take a longer time to warm up.

I did some tests on my old BMW using hidden locked functions on the trip computer. One of these functions was an instantaneous readout of the fuel consumption in litres per hour.

On a cold start the Diesel engine would draw about 1.5L per hour right after a cold start, falling to around 0.5L per hour when fully warmed up. When engaging a high gear, holding the car on the brakes & raising the engine speed to around 1500rpm, the instantaneous fuel consumption rose to around 6L per hour & dropped to around 4L per hour as the engine quickly warmed up.

So the choice was between using a slow engine speed/low fuel draw for a long period of time, or a higher engine speed/higher fuel draw for a much shorter period of time. In the end it was like six of one, half a dozen of the other-but the engine warmup was much faster & the car much nicer to drive when setting off with a hot engine-it felt instantly responsive, whereas driving around on a cold engine made the car feel sluggish on very cold days until it had warmed up.

In the end, I did what I had to do because of the climate & parking situation where I live

 

Hmmm. Here we're down to -5C maybe -10C with plenty of snow and ice.
Even after the car stood for a week it was warm within about 2-4km of driving.
Do you think maybe yours takes a longer time to heat up?

 

It's mainly a method I use because my parking situation means it's not always easy to just get in the Jag & take it round the block for a drive-see my detailed explanations above

There's nothing wrong with the car-just the parking situation I have with 4 cars in a cramped & busy road, so I came up with this method of warming up the engine faster if the car's going to be stuck in the driveway covered with snow on the odd occasions when it's a logistical nightmare to manouevre everything else out of the way...

Most of the time I do take it out normally to warm it up thoroughly.

 

Crappy weather, busy roads, people blocking you in your own driveway,......the question is why? Why not move? If someone would block me in MY driveway (which is about quarter mile long, BTW), I'd probably shoot them. Oh, I almost forgot,....you are in Britain,...no guns! Sorry.

Sometimes I feel cramped in my place. My next door neighbor is about 1/2 mile away, but it's still too close. Sometimes they have guests, and the kids are driving ATVs next to the fence, and it disturbs my animals. We are thinking about pulling the anchor, and moving North. Worse weather, but we can afford so many acres, that you can almost put up your fences, start printing your own money, and declare the independence (total about 11000 acres, with one's own lake, river that runs through it, forrest, and all kinds of animals).

But we both miss Europe too. She was stationed in Ankara, Turkey for five years (traveled all over of course), and I lived in Germany, Italy, and Yugoslavia, all together (on and off) for about 28 years.

In Europe we would miss our animals, open spaces, guns, and freedom, and over here we miss the culture,.....a stroll in the museum, sitting in the sidewalk cafe on Via Venetto and people watching, and going to the opera at night,....hopping in the car, and in 6 hours change three (or four) countries, and speak different languages,......stuff like that.

Back on topic,......keep doing what you're doing. It obviously works for you,....I would never do that to my car though. I would gently back it out of the driveway (if I can!), and go out for a spirited drive,....warming up the engine the natural way.