Why does it take forever for my ralli-art to get the halfway mark, my o2 auto es took about 3-5mins, while the ralli-art takes about 15mins even longer. Also if i couldnt wait, while im driving my old es, would jump to OT (operating temperature) as im driving. In my ralli-art she doesnt budge for something likek 3-5mins, and its very gradually. I like to let my car warm up all the time, on hot or cold days.

Lately thou cali has been getting alot colder and windy (due to this offshore flow and santa ana winds), so im letting her warm up for almost 10mins and she still wont even hit half way mark.

 

Believe it or not, the best way to warm up the car is to lug it in high gear (while driving of course). Shift into 5th gear at 20-25 mph and floor it. The engine will burn as much fuel as it can per combustion and warm the engine up more quickly than an idle that takes up a fraction of a fraction of the fuel.

If you use synthetic oil, this is actually not necessary. Even in the coldest of cold weather. Just drive like a grandma till the engine warms up.

Just turning the car on and leaving it to warm up actually does more damage. Barely any fuel is being burned per combustion and the oil takes forever to get warmed (not a problem with synthetic). This means thousands of rotations without warm oil. I could write an essay, but I do enough of them for my petrolem engineering classes.

As far as the engine warming goes between this car and your previous car. Consider the ralliart has a larger engine with more mass, a larger radiator, and more radiator coolant. There is way more mass to heat up in RA.

 

My ralliart takes minutes to warm up (2-4 of driving). I live in Canada, on a day just above freezing, that's how long it takes to warm up. Perhaps your thermosdat is slow/stuck open. I know it is a new car, but anything is possible. BTW the cooling system has little to do with it, the thermosdat should be closed while the engine is cold, therefore the engine keeps getting the same coolant run back to it until it is warm. Something is wrong, take it in. NO car in California should take 15 minutes to warm up, doesn't matter if it is a V8 with a 4 row rad. or a 1.5L 4 cylinder with a tiny radiator, it should take 5 minutes or less of driving. Letting it idle to warm up is bad, idling an engine is bad for it ANYWAY, idling a COLD engine isn't good at all. Gasoline engines like to be under load, idle is hardly a load.

 

Wouldn't the trade off be the possibility of warping the head? I would think that if you rush-heated the block, it would cause things to warp, just like brakes do when they heat/cool too fast.

 

No, it would be nearly impossible to warp the head/block that way. It isn't rush heating anyway, things warp when the tempurature is not even throughout. An engine, no matter how quickly it heats up, heats up evenly. Now, when an engine overheats (say a blocked radiator) the coolant no longer absorbs heat, so some parts of the engine are EXTREMELY hot and some parts are only a little hot. Thus that warps the head/blows the head gasket.
As for brake rotors, they warp for 2 reasons
1. EXTREME heat, they are SO hot they just cannot cool evenly.
2. Many quick stops and then sitting at a light. The blistering hot pads sit on one spot of the rotor, making warping a possibility.
It is much better for the engine to start it, let it idle for AT MOST 30 seconds and then drive away. Now if I lived in California, I would start it and put it in gear and leave. Since it gets to -30 degrees up here, I may let it idle for 30 seconds-1 minute and then drive.
LOL with my old car though, it was carbed and I HAD to let it idle to warm it up. If it was cold, it would stall as soon as I put it in gear. With a computer controlled injection, there is NO reason to idle it to warm it up.

Here is a site that explains the reasons to not idle an engine.
http://www.hcdoes.org/airquality/vehicles/IdleMyth.htm

 

I was told to always let your engine warm up a bit before you take off because of going on cold engine. I heard you can mess up the engine driving it cold. Now i never WOT, but I would drive like a granny intil about 1/2way mark.

Yeah, even when its like 95 out here and my car is hot as hell inside, she still gradually and i mean slow as hell gets up there. Its not bad, because the heater/AC work perfectly well... to well, haha. Just thought would it be a problem

 

When an engine is cold, it is wearing a lot faster than a warm engine. The rings, cylinder walls, bearings...everything is wearing faster when an engine is cold. You want that engine to warm up as quickly and safely as possible. Driving nicely for 3-5 minutes until it warms up is the fastest and easiest on the engine. Don't drive crazy (WOT, high speed) but don't let it idle. Idling an engine for 10 minutes to warm it up will cause more wear on it than driving nicely for 3-5 minutes. If your car takes forever to warm up (with it 95 degrees out, it should warm up REALLY quick). Just take it in and say it is taking 10-15 minutes of driving to warm up. That is not normal.

 

When I start my car, I wait for it to go through its "rough idle" stage (20-30sec), and then take off, but I don't really get on it until it's up to operating temp. Mine only takes a couple miles to be fully warm.

Arithmetic, I would bet on your thermostat being stuck open. Have the dealer replace it under warranty, or DIY. The part's less than $15. If you go that route, though, DON'T get a crappy Autozone thermostat. The hole in it is about 1/2-2/3 the size of the stock one.

Good luck with it.

 

FYI, use Amsoil, Royal Purple, Redline, or Mobile 1 synthetic oil and this entire subject becomes a non-issue. Synthetic oils don't suffer from cold weather like crude oil based conventionals.

Castrol Syntec in the USA is not synthetic. Trust me. So don't mention it. The above mentioned are true laboratory formed synthetic lubes.

 

It doesn't matter what oil you use, a cold engine will ALWAYS wear more than a warm engine. The tolerances are tighter. It is always best to drive nicely until the engine is warm.

 

How big of a problem are we talking? Are you guys saying that if you idle the car for 5 min every morning it'll kill the engine or are you saying that instead of 150,000 you'll get 100,000 miles out of it. I always just jump in my car and go. I've seen many different driving styles and many different stories. I'd say the best way to do it is to just jump in and drive normaly. The enginers at mitsu probably design everything based on norms and averages anyway.

 

It wouldn't kill the engine, but it wastes fuel, increases engine wear (a 10 minute cold idle is worse than a 3 minute cold drive) and does other fairly minor things. Take a look at this site, it explains some things.

http://www.hcdoes.org/airquality/vehicles/IdleMyth.htm

 

Cold engine wear is cause primarily by cold thick oil. Synthetic does not thicken anywhere near as much as conventional. Synthitic oil pours a temperatures 100 or more degrees below what a comperable conventional does. Everyone in a climate with snow should seriously consider sythetic.