I see people start their cars up after sitting for a few hours, and 20 seconds later fly out of the parking lot bouncing off the rev limiters... Can this hurt the engine? Does it damage it if you treat it like that before hitting operating temp?

 

Sure seems like it would and I wouldn't treat my Sally like that even warm. There is a fine line between running a car hard and beating it. I never cross that on purpose.

 

+1

 

I know there has been a lot of discussion on the break-in period for the new Mustang, I am old school and chose to keep it quiet for the first 600 miles. Also, living in the Phoenix area (very hot summers), I always prop my hood open after parking the car in my garage, just to let the engine cool down a lttle quicker. I know thats probably a little overkill, but we don't see the temperature dip below 90 degrees even at night in July/August/September time frame.

 

+2

I never find my self even getting close to red line unless im racing... an not on the streets either...

 

those peaple are silly, you should always drive the car untill the temp gadge reads warm, then you can rip it up.

 

I also wait for the temp gauge to tell me the motor has warmed up. Before that, I drive her pretty mellow.

 

Not very bright to run a motor hard that is not completely warmed up. It’s not warmed up until all the fluid temperatures are in their normal operating range. In NASCAR the reason they run pace laps is to get all the fluids up to temperature.

A cold motor has thicker oil which is harder to pump or flow. Tolerances in the motor are much larger until the parts warm up and expand just very naive to beat on a cold motor because it will eventually fail, at least prematurely…

And its not just the motor but the transmission and rear-end as well.

 

if its not up to running temperature, the metal components of the engine have not expanded properly to fill clearances and find their seatings. a motor that has not warmed up will ping, float valves, and lose compression over time, among other things...so said a mechanic friend of mine.

 

This is an important point too. I hate it when I see people letting their cars warm up (during the summer?) and then driving them out of the lot like nutjobs because "the engine is warm". The entirety of the car needs time to warm up. Tranny, diff, hell even the suspension needs a little time to get up to full performance. I'll warm my car up a bit in the winter, but never longer than a minute or so.