You shouldn’t warm up your car during cold weather and here’s why

When the weather seems to be getting colder by the minute, it gets harder and harder each day to get out of bed, especially if you know you’re going to have to scrape the windshield of your car before being able to leave. A lot of people start the engine of their car and let it run so the car warms up before they scrape their windows. You shouldn’t be doing this to your car, though, and this is the important reason why.

Warming up your car damages its engine more than you’d think.

Engine

There’s an important reason why you shouldn’t start the engine of your car and give it a few minutes to warm up before driving off. Of course, it’s nice to step into a warm and toasty car when you’re done scraping the windows, but your car is less happy with the situation than you are. By letting it run stationary for a couple of minutes, you’re causing it to use up fuel and this can damage the engine. The engine will run on a combination of air and evaporated fuel.

Waste

A car will warm up a lot less quickly when it’s in stationary than when it’s actually driving. At the same time, the cylinders are filling up with a combination of air and fuel. This also wastes oil in the motor. All in all, this isn’t very good for your car. If you do this too often, you run the risk of your car needing to take a trip to the garage pretty quickly. And that’s not a fun time for anyone, least of all your wallet…

So what should you do? Go to the next page to find out!

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