How long to warm up a 10 year old Boxster?

[99 Boxcutter]

Do you wait forward to get a certain temperature?

[brjak]

Mine is 17 years old. I idle in driveway for 3-4 minutes. Than drive passively until it warms up. Usually only another 5-7 minutes.

[mnc-i]

Reference warming up your Boxster

1. My 1999 Boxster has 229,500 miles.

2. I live in Central Texas, so it doesn't really get all that cold here (but how cold is all relative:-)

3. Since the Boxster is a modern car with electronic fuel injection, I don't recommend wasting fuel to warm it up. I just don't rev it (past 2500 rpm) until it reaches operating temperature.

4. Having said that, if I lived in Alaska or somewhere where it is normally at or below freezing I would let the car idle in the garage (with the door open) for 3 - 5 minutes before I drive off.

Just my two-cents
MNC-I

[Luv2Box]

Modern cars (older Boxsters included) do not require the warm up times that older air cooled motors needed. Modern electronics and lubricants allow closer tolerances when cold than the air cooled motors that needed to warm up to reach running temperature tolerances. Like many others here I start mine up and drive off keeping the revs at a sane level until operating temp is reached.

[kk2002s]

Idling is bad
Manual basically says be ready to drive when you start it
I wait till Secondary air pump stops, give it a a few 2k RPM gentle revs and just take it easy until temps get up

Like most that's 2-3 minutes for cold start

[Pominoz]

Mine idles just long enough to get the roof down

[Slate 01]

Originally Posted by Pominoz

Mine idles just long enough to get the roof down

Right on!

[Pdwight]

I was told by the PO and one other person that to not put your foot into the car until you reach 180 Degrees on the temp gauge.

[gomarlins3]

2004 Boxster S. I wait until the air pump shuts off and the idle drops.

[golonaus]

Originally Posted by gomarlins3

2004 Boxster S. I wait until the air pump shuts off and the idle drops.

I used to do the same but got tired of waiting, so performed SAI Delete.
Now I can drive right away

[Luv2Box]

Originally Posted by golonaus

I used to do the same but got tired of waiting, so performed SAI Delete.
Now I can drive right away

How did you do that and not get a CEL? I'm interested because the three diaphragms on my SAI system have failed and it threw a P1411 code and a CEL. It's an $800 job to replace them but if deleting the SAI is cheaper and passes California smog test I'd do it.

[ammonman]

Start the car, put it in gear and drive off. Keep the rpms below 3500-4000 until the coolant starts to get warm then drive like a Porsche should be driven. As others have said, extended idling isn't good for any car.

Mike

[jsceash]

When the engine is cold I see oil pressure about 25 to 30 PSI higher than normal. I leave it idle until they stabilize in normal running range.

[JFP in PA]

This subject is one of the great misunderstandings of the car world.

-Allowing the car to idle for several min. to warm up does absolutely no harm, and in fact if very beneficial to both the engine and drive line.
-The reasons your manual tells you not to let the car idle is the exact same reason they now come with a system that shuts the engine down at traffic lights: CAFE ratings. They say that purely to try an improve the cars gas mileage, which is also why the car supposedly needs 0W oil. OEM's will spend millions to try and eek another 0.2 MPG out of the existing car designs rather than come up with improved engineering designs that require retooling their manufacturing.

[Nine8Six]

What about my A/C, will they decide to "disable" that as well... at traffic lights?

interesting....

Leaving my Boxster warm up 30 secs before hitting the road here - rarely see freezing temp here anyway. Oh and I have 986forum in mind when the car is cold "don't rev passed 2,5k until op temp reached" read that many times here lol
(not complaining)

[78F350]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

This subject is one of the great misunderstandings of the car world.

-Allowing the car to idle for several min. to warm up does absolutely no harm, and in fact if very beneficial to both the engine and drive line.
-The reasons your manual tells you not to let the car idle is the exact same reason they now come with a system that shuts the engine down at traffic lights: CAFE ratings. They say that purely to try an improve the cars gas mileage, which is also why the car supposedly needs 0W oil. OEM's will spend millions to try and eek another 0.2 MPG out of the existing car designs rather than come up with improved engineering designs that require retooling their manufacturing.

Thanks for posting that info JFP. I had read the manual and wondered about the reasoning behind not idling to warm up. I had thought that it may somehow be bad for the engine, but I couldn't understand why. So... management decision.

[mikefocke]

JFP We understand it is good for mileage to just start and go. But isn't how you score on the EPA cycle is determined by the rules for testing which are quite specific, not driving habits.

You cite benefits to the engine and drive train. How do you know this (even with all the Posche's you see, how is there a way of determining if a specific driving habit causes a problem?).

I'll confess that for cars manufactured since 1970, I've just started the car, fastened the seat belt, adjusted the mirror, set the radio and driven off. Very gently for the first mile, never over 3500 RPM. And I wait till the water temp is settled and at least 12 miles before busting 5000. The only 2 of probably 40 cars I've ever had that had problems were one with 100k miles and a design weakness everyone knew about and another with 75k miles and a transmission problem that was the cause of a recall. I don't attribute either of those complete failures to driving habits.

I have trouble imagining who and how someone did a scientific test that would prove a cause and effect. Help me understand.

[JFP in PA]

Mike-

All EPA CAFE ratings include cold starts, and according to the CAFE rules, the OEM has to outline the methodology used to obtain the claimed mileage for the owner in the manual. Starting the car and letting it warm up obviously produces zero miles of travel for several min. of engine running time, which over the life of the car will lower its actual achieved miles per gallon of fuel consumed. Simple arithmetic.

Over the life of my business, I have had multiple opportunities to rebuild engines for customers that I subsequently had to look into years later. Interestingly, engines that are always warmed before driving showed less bearing scuffing and tended to have better looking cylinder walls after nearly equivalent miles.

As you know, I have also both owned and crewed on various race cars over the years, and we never allowed the engines to be pushed without a full warm up. Several cars, in fact, used outside systems to circulate warmed coolant before the engines were even fired to reduce cylinder wall and bearing scuffing. Many years ago, a then prominent engine builder (now deceased) ran cell dyno runs on engines that were always kept warm vs. units that were cold started and then warmed up before making power runs. The engines that were perpetually kept warm consistently produced more power for longer periods than the ones that were cold started and warmed. When torn down, the always warm engines again showed less component wear as well. He attributed the differences to the dimensional stability of the engine's that were kept warm, and the additional wear on the cold start engines to dimensional shift processes that take place during the warm up cycles.

[Giller]

Maybe it's just me, but I never let my car warm up for longer than it takes to set the radio and buckle up and for one simple reason - idling a vehicle is horribly bad for the environment. No scientific proof exists that it hurts the vehicle to just go - as per the 1000's of articles written about this. So why not protect the environment?

[Sisu guy]

As someone who has spent the last 40 years designing and developing both air cooled and liquid cooled engines I can tell you without reservation that it is ALWAYS better to allow engines to warm up with light load before going to high speed or load.

Consider that the thermal expansion rate of aluminum is twice that of steel and consider what that means to various tolerances and oil film thicknesses when cold parts are suddenly exposed to the temperatures of combustion!