stop-start driving from cold? advise?

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Fri 27 Aug 2004 10:31
stop-start driving from cold? advise? - Ian (Cape Town)
This morning, in my usual manner, I left to go to work. Mistake. The road outside my house, which is normally a \'rat run\' was busy, but i thought no more of it. Next thing I discover why - there\'s been an accident 800m or so up the road (YES! It involved a minibus taxi!) and traffic was at a standstill.
It took me 20 minutes to get from my driveway to the corner - 100m down the road.
In hindsight, i should have just parked the car and walked back home for another cup of coffee!
BUT, here\'s the rub... manaufacturers advise getting in the car and driving off staright away. Effectively this morning I was \'idling\' for 20 minutes! TWICE I turned the engine off, and restarted a few minutes later.
Is this wise?
What, under the circumstances, would be/have been the best course of action?
(NB - the car don\'t have a Catalyser!)
Keep crawling along at idle? Keep stopping and starting the engine? Revving the engine to get it warmed up quicker? parking (as above) and coming back later?
Ideas? Thoughts?
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Fri 27 Aug 2004 10:41
stop-start driving from cold? advise? - Stuartli
Such use creates higher engine wear as you obviously realise - but it's probably best to accept that this was (presumably) a one-off situation.

I think I'd have turned round and had that second cup of coffee...:-)
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Fri 27 Aug 2004 10:54
stop-start driving from cold? advise? - Cliff Pope
In a real one-off there is not much you can do. But if you regularly had to stop-start with a cold engine I'd look at fitting one of those pre-heaters. Then at least it wouldn't be a cold engine.
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Fri 27 Aug 2004 10:57
stop-start driving from cold? advise? - THe Growler
Ian:

I face this every day. Sometimes it can take 45 minutes to get the 2 km out of my sub-division to the main road. Rat-run again, drivers are supposed to buy an annual sticker to use the private roads as short-cuts. About 80% don't bother.

Hell, I just crank up the a/c, dig out some MJQ or some other soft jazz CD, and text everyone I know.....let the engine stay on idle and take care of itself.

My feeling is manufacturers should concentrate on making cars that remain durable under the prevailing traffic conditions where they're sold. It shouldn't be up to the owner to worry about this sort of thing. Men on moon etc...
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