Jessa

The owner's manual says the right thing to do to warm up the engine is to drive the car, avoiding high speeds. How high is high? When I take my shark out on cold California mornings (40 - 60 degrees F), I keep it under 30mph and 2000rpm. It warms up quickly over the couple miles of city streets between me and the freeway, and I haven't had any problems, but I still wonder if this is what Porsche recommends. Maybe I should be pushing it a less, or a little harder? How do ya'll warm up on a cold(ish) day?

Nicole

You are doing the right thing. Driving the car with low to moderate rpm warms up the engine much faster than letting it idle. This reduces both wear and emissions, and is common practise in Europe.

In Germany you can and will be ticketed, if you warm up your car in idle. My first car had such a bad heater, that sometimes I let it idle a little while before driving off. It was the only way to keep the windshield ice free.

One morning, while scraping the ice off the winshield I heared a voice from behind: "What do you think you are doing wrong at this moment?". I turned around, and there were two cops. Because I turned the engine off right away, I got off with a warning.

From then on I used a watering can with not too hot water to slowly deice my windows in the morning. People had warned me the glass would crack from the temperature change, but it never happened. In fact, I probably scratched the glass less than before. Did this until I moved to CA.

Jerry 87 928S4

Jessa and Nicole too, your definition of cold is sure different than mine in Chicago

I believe the simple explanation is that you want the oil to warm to properly lubricate the engine.

If we had an oil temperature guage you would see it reaches operating temperature 5 minutes or so after the water reaches operating temperature. Anyway, this is a rough guideline to use before you want to start hearing BBBBWWWWAAAAHHHHHH.

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WallyP

Jessa, your situation is close to ideal. Two miles of slow driving on city streets and then highway speeds (of course, Interstates and expressways in Atlanta are slower than city streets during rush hour, but that's another problem).

You should also remember that it is virtually impossible to drive a 928 "hard" in the USA by Porsche's definitions!

I also have a personal belief that it is good for virtually any car to get full-throttle acceleration at least once each trip. I try to use expressway on-ramps - turn onto the ramp at a slow speed in second (5-speeds), and accelerate to crusing speed at full throttle.