Tips for Starting Your Car on a Cold Morning

One of these frozen mornings I'm going to wake up to va-rrooom, va-rroom, va-BANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLUNK-dinga-linga-ling. "YOU STUPID @#%&! CAR!" Followed by a couple swift kicks to the side of a car. And it won't even be the car's fault.

I don't know who has taught most people how to start cars on a cold morning, but they weren't taught by someone with any car sense. Cold oil has an adverse dislike to speed. It likes to linger in the oil pan just like people like to linger in bed on a cold morning. And motor parts don't like rubbing together without lubrication. Oil slowed by cold doesn't make it to the moving parts as fast as warm oil. Yet, people have a need to make those moving parts work their metals off. And, yes, synthetic oils are getting better, but even they still like to be somewhat lazy on cold mornings.

Maybe people start their cars this way because they get a thrill out of listening to a revving motor. Maybe it's the only time a person gets to act like A. J. Foyt. Or maybe it's like the cartoon I saw when I was in grade school. A cartoon to teach children how not to drive when they grow up.

Goofy walks down the sidewalk careful not to step on even a flea, but once he gets behind the wheel, he turns into a deranged maniac. He fires the car up, revs it to the max four or five times and peels out, not giving the slightest thought of whom or what might be in his way. And without giving the car a chance to warm up.

"Well, my car won't idle when it's cold," you complain.

Then take it to the shop and have the choke adjusted and/or a tune up.

"That costs money."

Not half as much as buying a new car or engine or even rebuilding the engine.

If you're always in too big of a hurry to let the engine idle awhile, there is no need to. Matter of fact, letting a gas engine idle too long is almost as bad as revving the carbon monoxide out of it on a cold morning. Idling a gas engine lets gas deposits seep past the rings down the cylinder walls into the oil. An idling engine doesn't burn gas as well as a working engine.

Now you're saying, "So, Mr. Car Smarts, what am I supposed to do on a wintry morning?"