mrrab
New member
This is a good point, I only know this stuff because we run 8000 KW backup gereators for our steam plant (and I took 4 years of engineering). Warm up time before they go onload (unless in an emergency) is 15 minutes and cooldown time (offload) is 20 minutes. So I use this principle on my V8 and always warm it up and cool it down with a few minutes of idle and never have problems. Even at a gas station I never see anybody with large engines let it cool for a minute or two, as for starting up at a gas station, its already warm so there's reason to wait, just start and go.
As for william asking what this has to do with anything, this is the root cause for these issues people are having.
Okay, so I respect your 4 years of engineering experience and the line of work you perform, but don't you think Toyota and and any other car manufacture take the "normal American" driving techniques into considerations when engineering a car? Maybe I should look in my manual, but I would venture to guess that the manual doesn't say to let your engine idle for a few second before shutting it off. I would only do this if I had a turbo. However, I bet the manual says something about letting the car warm up for about 1 minute before driving in cold conditions. Anything over 1 minute is useless, because by driving conservatively you're warming your car up.
Another thing to consider is that most American probably let there car idle way too long during cold morning start ups if they park outside. And I think this is worst.