The opposite of "what you are supposed to do"

I met up with a friend over dinner last night. He's had a 996 Cab for over 10 years. We spoke about our cars a bit, and he laughed about how little he drives it. In fact, he usually drives it 1 mile to park it (taking the train to work from there) and a mile back after work. We were laughing about how, especially with these engines, you are really supposed to get them all the way up to operating temperature before parking them. Get the revs up after that. Exercise them. Instead he drives his almost daily. 2 miles per day, with 10 hrs idle time in between each mile. I believe he's blissfully unaware of the whole IMS scenario, and at this rate, I'm not about to tell him to do anything different. Keep doing what's you're doing, bro!

I bought some taillights from a guy who showed me pictures of his 996, because it was "being worked on by a local shop." He proudly told me he always lets the car warm up "for an hour before driving it." Of course I cringed at that fact, even though we're in a warm climate. But on those cold(50F) days... He was nice enough, but discounted my opinion that he should start and drive it right away.

Ugh, my wife laughs at the steps I go through to drive me. Lol. I let it warm up for about 10 mins. I wait for the oil pressure to drop some. When I start it the needle,is pegged at 5. I wait for it drop to about 4. Then I don’t go over 3k rpms until the oil pressure is at about 2 when idling. Who knows, I am likely doing it all wrong.

I try to get going as soon as practical. Drive it between 2500-3700 until the temp comes up. I have been watching my oil pressure due to a recent sender replacement. My buddy drives without a care. Who is mentally healthier? LOL.

IF somebody has a minute.... WHY, exactly, is it bad to let the engine idle for any length of time?

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Did you have the moment of terror some of us have experienced while driving when it starts to go bad and the extreme relief when you find out it's a cheap, easily replaceable part?

Driving it wrong for 10 years. Huh. Car forums are saturated with car problems, not much about how reliable xxxx car is, or how nothing has been done other than normal maintenance for years. Keep that thought in mind, because I would venture a guess that 90% of car owners know nothing about their cars or how they work. They just drive in simple, ignorant bliss.

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Sort of. But instead of showing no/low pressure, it was showing high pressure. I still was worried (could something be blocked?) but between responses here and the response of my indy, I got over it

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One persons opinion here: It's not bad for a modern engine to idle for a while. Back in olde-timey days, starting an engine and letting it run at idle for a long time would: 1. foul the plugs because the choke was left on(a 'choke' is a ****, on the dash that when pulled would increase the rich mixture of fuel to air to very messy levels). 2. Eventually in hot climates would overheat the engine and warp the heads.C. generate sludge in the upper part of the engine(head) where oil would flow, and cool and the goo would separate out and gum up the top. Modern cars: Have regulated mixture, and an idle up period where the engine is running as optimal as possible until things are at working temp. Are almost completely sealed so that there's no oil sludge collecting in the head(modern oils too). Will not overheat except in very very weird climates.

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Not true. On starts ups, modern vehicles run in an open loop cycle, meaning the DME does not take input from the 02 sensors to adjust fuel trims. Modern vehicles still run rich on start up. (this is intentional, to reduce warm up period) After warming up, the vehicle then runs on a closed loop cycle and will then adjust fuel trims according to 02 sensor input. This is very basic theory of operation for modern vehicles. I believe Jake hypothesized that one factor that may cause bore scoring in colder climates is that the vehicle will run rich for prolonged periods of time during warm up/open loop operation. This could wash out the oil on the cylinder walls. Tony Callas likes to warm up his vehicles by reving between idle and 2000 rpm at idle. He demonstrates it in this video. You Tube I start my car, and drive it.

So it’s wrong to,let it warm up by idling and letting the pressure drop?

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I stand by my statement. I made no mention of closed loop or open loop I said, and I will say again "modern cars have a regulated mixture...". If you consider there is no regulation, how is the pulse width of the injector determined? I will tell you. The DME uses an engine temp sensor, and set s a REGULATED pulse width for F/A mixture. Again, I said NOTHING about open loop, so you are putting up your own strawman to knock down. Congrats. As for idle up, one can hear it easily on the 996 when started cold. the engine will idle up for less than a minute, before dropping to normal idle. In this case, the idle air valve is again regulated by the DME to have a higher RPM than when hot. Anyway, the point I wanted to make, which you completely ignored is that modern cars will run much leaner(comparatively) when cold than an old 53 Chevy with a Rochester carb and manual choke. Which contributes to all things I mentioned in response to another post on 'why not let it idle'.

I can understand why you’re sticking with your post, but you conveniently left out “and an idle up period where the engine is running as optimal as possible” from your own quote which was kind of the entire point of my post. The fact of the matter is the engine is not ”running as optimal as possible” like you stated it is, which is why I brought up open loop vs closed loop. I’m also not saying that fuel isn’t regulated; clearly it has to be for the engine to operate. What I’m saying is just because it runs better than some old v8 does not mean it’s running as optimally as possible. If the engine were running as optimally as possible, it wouldn’t be running so rich that it’s washing out oil from the cylinder walls. Edit: I should also throw in here: modern engines running in an acceptable manner during warm up and avoiding long warm up periods are not mutually exclusive schools of thought. My post wasn't an attempt to elicit fear mongering over scored bores or to argue with you, but rather it's to point out that two very experienced water cooled Porsche specialists have observed a pattern. It's only logical to reduce risk (avoid prolonged warm up periods) when a pattern is identified. You're saying engine runs okay, drive immediately. I'm saying engine runs okay, but what you really want to do is avoid is reduce prolonged open loop operation, so drive immediately. Both statements are true, one is just a little more risk adverse.

I interned at a bank in college and one of the ladies there drove a brand new 996 C4s. Older lady, very sweet. With snow on the ground after an 8 hour shift, shed get in her car, crank it over, light a cigarette and blast off. I wait for the oil level test to complete (assuming its the 5 second cycle) then take it easy until the water temp starts to rise. I dont really hammer on my car too much but give it a couple runs to redline when safe to ensure everything gets a work out. I drive the car about twice a week for at least a half an hour each time