Hey guys, I have been thinking about this question a lot lately.
I do a few more short trips than usual because of my job and I was wondering about all the engine wear im causing.

Say I were to go into a store 3 times in 1 hour for just a few min each. Would it be best to turn the car off or leave it running?

I make many of these short stops in my day and I feel like starting and stopping my car that much cant be good on the starter, turbo, oil pump ect... I may just be just over protective of my car because I had a jeep before this and it would start and stop all day every day with no problems. Sometimes I feel that my X is just tired after a long day.

 

I believe its just cold starts that affect your engine negatively... minutely at that. I think youre mixing the belief that keeping your car running when you run a very brief errand actually saves you more gas than shutting it off and turning it back on, with the knowledge that cold starts suck for your engines health.

 

.... you run the risk of someone either driving off with your car or locking yourself out.

It's no big deal. Idle time could be argued to put wear on the car as well like how cop cars are idled all the time but mileage won't read it.

 

Most hybrids, if not all, shut the engine off when sitting anyway. Maybe you'll wear out the starter and battery faster, but thats about it.

 

All good things to know, its been a battle with myself for a while now. I will probably just turn it off now. Starters are far less expensive than a new block as far as wear goes. I want this car to go 100k before I sell it.

 

If you don't mind, how short are your trips and what kind of mileage are you getting? I know I shouldn't expect 'good' mileage, but if I get the evo as my dd, my commute is only 1.9 x 4 each day. So no more than 1.9 4x a day... and I'm worried that it is going to have ridiculously horrendous mileage! If thats the case, then I need to rethink fixing my beater and having the evo for the weekends.

 

My X is my DD and my trip to work is 15mi which is all highway with no traffic in the morning and thats the usual (if I keep my foot out) 22mpg and all of the short stops can be anywhere between 1-5 mi each and I could make up to 6 trips out here per day. At the end of the day I have the car reading about 17 -18 mpg including the highway trip to work. It does take a tole on your mileage but if you don't WOT to each location, its not any worse than a jeep.

Having all of these trips make me wish I got an MR though, but on the weekends I love the GSR! It would be a hard choice if I had to make it again

 

Use a quality oil and you'll be fine; warm starts really don't cause any additional wear on the engine. Like others have mentioned, a lot of new cars do the auto stop/start to save gas at stoplights. You'll need to replace your battery more often than normal, but that's relatively cheap and easy...and still won't be any more often than every 2-3 years.

 

I use qt of lucas full synthetic oil stabilizer every time i do an oil change because on the bottle itself helps cold starts an fights friction being the lucas oil sticks to the motor parts after the car has sat over night....An no its not snake oil it would be called false advertisement..I plan on getting 150,000 miles+ on this stock turbo an engine with no major issues

 

This is good news. Thanks for the info guys. I'm still guessing ill be lucky to get 15mpg though. My trip has a couple short straights and a few lights. Nothing at hi way speeds.