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Stop Burning a Hole in Your Pocket Warming Your Car in Winter

Winter is a difficult time for drivers. It does it's best to wreak havoc on your gas mileage. You may be playing the part of an unwitting ally to winter's effect on your fuel economy. Improperly warming your car up could be burning a hole in your pocket.

The first thing you need to do in cold weather get out of the habit of letting your car warm up when you start it. Old cars may have needed some warm up time, today's cars don't.

Many car owners idle their car for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes in cold weather to let their cars warm up. You need no more than 30 seconds of idling to get your oil circulating before you can drive away. Do not let your car idle for more than 30 seconds.

When you idle your car to warm it up you are burning gas but not going anywhere. When you let that happen you are getting zero miles per gallon. You may think that idling your car for few minutes or so is no big deal, think again.

To give yourself an idea about how much gas you would be burning by just letting your car idle for 5 minutes each time you start it think about this. Assume you idle for 5 minutes when you start your car in the morning. Assume you idle for 5 minutes again, sometime during the day when you start your car again to drive home.

Therefore your car is idling for a minimum of 10 minutes a day. For illustrative purposes we consider winter to be four months long, or 120 days long. If a car is idling for 10 minutes a day for 120 days then it is idling for 1200 minutes during the winter period.

1200 Minutes is 20 hours. Think about it, warming your car for only 5 minutes per start amounts to your car idling and burning gas going nowhere, for 20 hours. Can you visualize your car sitting and idling for 20 hours? Of course not. Then why warm it up for the equivalent of 20 hours of burning gas when it is completely unnecessary?

The best way to warm your car is by driving it. Most drivers don't realize that in order for your car to operate efficiently other parts in addition to the engine need to warm up. The tires, the transmission, the wheel bearings and other moving parts also need to warm up. The catalytic converter on your car doesn't function at its peak until it reaches between 400C and 800C. The only way to warm up the other parts of your car is by driving. The reality is your car needs to be driven to completely warm it up anyway.

To save gas and increase gas mileage in the winter one of the simplest things you can do is warm your car by driving it, not by idling. Not only will it save you gas and money but you will also be doing something positive for the environment. That warm car will stop burning a hole in your pocket.

Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles

Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of automotive industry insider secrets on saving gas and dollars at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to discover how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to improve gas mileage. Click here to get your own unique version of this article.

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