Cold Engine, Redlining it.

[Overdrive]

As has been already said, owner's manual says to not let the car idle and warm up. After reading this (the day I got the car), I've followed it. You can tell when the car is cold and running the secondary air injection because the revs drop off very slowly compared to a warm engine, and the shifting is a bit sludgy until the fluid warms up more. But I just follow the manual: drive as soon as the car's started/ASAP, don't exceed 80% throttle when car's not up to temp, don't exceed 4000 rpms when car's not up to temp. I also follow the colloquial rule of thumb of keeping the revs over 3000 as much as possible. I figure as long as I'm following the manual, Porsche can't say I caused problems by not driving the car properly.

I actually rather enjoy having to restrain myself to driving a certain way to let the car get up to temp. It can actually be kind of fun, and makes me pay more attention to what I'm doing as opposed to when I drive my DD econobox. It would suck if my commute were 100% city...I just make sure I make as much use of the stints on the higway as possible.

My commute to work is usually just long enough to get the water up to temp, depending on how long it takes me due to traffic, lights, etc. I know that's not good for the car, but I'm not going to leave extra early to take the scenic route just to let it get up to temp and then some...that's what my long drives to nowhere are for. My commute from work to my campus is about twice as long as my commute from home to either of the two places, so the car has plenty of time and road to get up to temp without being babied the entire way.

So, the short answer to your question: I make a game of sorts out of it, and have confidence that I'm not hurting the car by doing what Porsche says to do.:dance: