Sustainable Community Solutions

Do not idle your car for long periods to warm it up. Idling is not an effective way to warm up your vehicle, even in colder weather. The best way to warm up your vehicle to drive. With today’s modern engines, you need no more than 30 seconds of idling on winter days before starting to drive. Excessive idling can actually damage your engine’s components, including cylinders, spark plugs and the exhaust system. That’s because an idling engine is not operating at its peak temperature, which means that fuel combustion is incomplete. This leaves fuel residues that can condense on cylinder walls, where they can contaminate oil and damage engine components. For example, fuel residues tend to deposit on spark plugs. As the amount of engine idling increases, the average plug temperature drops and plug fouling is accelerated. This can increase fuel consumption by 4 to 5 percent. Excessive idling can also allow water to condense in the vehicle’s exhaust, which can lead to corrosion and reduce the life of the exhaust system. (Source)