Usually when I start my car, it gets driven for at least 30 minutes before stopping...many times longer.

There are two exceptions to this:

1) pulling out of garage to wash the car (30 seconds or less)
2) short drive to my fitness club (3-5 minutes)

I know that it is not ideal to just start the car, then stop it seconds or minutes later. The good news is that I probably only end up doing this once a week or so to wash the car. (My commitment to working out right now sucks )

So just how bad is it for the car? I know it should ideally have time to warm up. Does anyone just back it out to wash, or have these short drive issues?

thanks

 

Well, most cars prefer to be run before shut down. It is of course even more true for turbo cars and performance cars. But, once in a while one has to do these things (I believe washing a hot car is not recommended for a variety of reasons although I can only think of a couple of reasons; so I guess one has to start the car once to get it out of the garage). Also bear in mind that you dont want to throw ice cold water on a very hot car (not sure where you live) which means that you cannot return from a trip and start washing right away in your driveway. I have seen posts in the past about people who diligently wash their cars causing some rough idling, etc. when water gets into the wrong place. I always go for a spin immediately AFTER washing the car. Gets the water out of the brakes and other places. IN any event, do not worry too much and just try to avoid unnecessary start ups. From what I can tell, frequent start ups are probably bad for the 993 for one more reason; the Secondary Air Injection problem that some cars seem to report. Good luck.

 

My 911's were always daily drivers. Sometimes a short drive to wash the car, or just maybe 5 minutes to my tennis club. If this were the majority of my driving, certainly not good for the car. But in my (and your case, apparently), it is a "just-onice-in-a-while" event. Nothing to worry about. Never had any problems.

 

if you just have to move the car a few feet in the driveway can you carefully push it the distance?

 

the hips are so wide that the clearance on either side of the garage is not very much --- just a couple inches on either side

i actually tried this the first couple of times, and it was just too risky...too much chance of scraping one of the sides...!!

 

Jonathan,
The biggest downfall to short jaunts is not getting the moisture to evaporate out of the engine. It condenses and contaminates the engine oil. The other issue with short runs, at least in our climate, you never get it off of the cold start enrichment circuit which causes raw fuel to eventually end up in the oil. Ever notice the the creamy white nasty stuff when you change the oil?? That's the moisture and sludge or the resultant of these issues. It has no lubricating qualities at all. When you get the engine hot, it evaporates the moisture inside the engine and purges through the oil breather system. Moisture can also accumulate inside the exhaust system if you don't get it hot enough and that leads to premature corrosion and/ or rust. If you make a couple of short runs, offset these by taking it out and getting it really hot. Change the engine oil frequently to eliminate the contamination build up in the oil.
Hope this helps,
Mike

 

Jonathan, thanks for posting the concern and Mike (mrhude), thanks for your input... I love this place.

 

I've been driving around with a Bosch Hammer the past two weeks and on average it takes less than 2 minutes at 40MPH for the cylinder head temperature sensor to max out the DME temperature input at 124C/255F and stop all cold-start enrichment.