[Tronner]

How long does it take your car to come up to temps? We are having about 40 degree temps here, and it seems to take almost 10-15 minutes or more of driving before my temps get above 160. It seems incredibly long since my STi's seemed to warmup after about 3 minutes or less. Just curious.

[Forcefed3]

About 10 minutes when it's really cold.

[jaco]

It takes my car about 15 minutes or 5 miles to get above 160 degree's for an oil temp when its around 15 degrees outside. If its over freezing about 5 minutes.

[hipnotic]

15 minutes usually

[WilliamE92]

15 minutes/miles to hit 225-230 (full operating temp)

Usually 10 mins to break 160 lol.

I keep my heater off until the temp starts to pick up well.

[N55]

30 degrees right now and last ride took 20 min to reach 220 with heater on.

[2kaccordocoupe]

Originally Posted by Tronner

How long does it take your car to come up to temps? We are having about 40 degree temps here, and it seems to take almost 10-15 minutes or more of driving before my temps get above 160. It seems incredibly long since my STi's seemed to warmup after about 3 minutes or less. Just curious.

Keep in mind that temps vary by car. Some cars monitor water/coolant temp and some monitor oil temps. Our cars monitor oil temps.

Takes my car the same 15 mins or so.

[MatchesMalone]

It sometimes feels like it takes a long time to warm up due to two reasons:
1. Most people are used to looking at a water temp gauge, not oil temp. However, oil temp is the more relevant measure, and it takes a lot longer to warm up oil.
2. Our cars take almost 8 quarts of oil, and it takes a while to get that kind of a volume up to temperature.

On a related note, don't make the common mistake of letting the car "warm-up" by idling for several minutes before you drive. This is not the proper way to warm up your car. It's much better to just start driving. The manual states (p.57 for my '08 335):

Do not wait for the engine to warm up while the vehicle remains stationary. Start driving right away, but at moderate speeds.

At first, this seemed counterintuitive, as I had always been told to give your car a few minutes to warm up when cold. However, after thinking about it more it does make sense. It will warm up more quickly that way, and you will warm up the whole car (powertrain and associated fluids, not just engine/coolant). Just take it easy on the throttle while it's cold.

Letting the car idle while stationary also generates unnecessary emissions, and for this reason it is actually now illegal in some places!

Oh, and one more thing:
Seriously, this has been discussed many times. I basically copy pasted my above response from another thread a couple weeks ago.

[shifterboy45]

the coolant temp rises pretty quickly -- you can tell this by turning on the heater.. ull feel the temp go up pretty quickly..

the oil temp thing always get folks -- sounds normal to me

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by MatchesMalone

It sometimes feels like it takes a long time to warm up due to two reasons:
1. Most people are used to looking at a water temp gauge, not oil temp. However, oil temp is the more relevant measure, and it takes a lot longer to warm up oil.
2. Our cars take almost 8 quarts of oil, and it takes a while to get that kind of a volume up to temperature.

On a related note, don't make the common mistake of letting the car "warm-up" by idling for several minutes before you drive. This is not the proper way to warm up your car. It's much better to just start driving. The manual states (p.57 for my '08 335):

At first, this seemed counterintuitive, as I had always been told to give your car a few minutes to warm up when cold. However, after thinking about it more it does make sense. It will warm up more quickly that way, and you will warm up the whole car (powertrain and associated fluids, not just engine/coolant). Just take it easy on the throttle while it's cold.

Letting the car idle while stationary also generates unnecessary emissions, and for this reason it is actually now illegal in some places!

Oh, and one more thing:
Seriously, this has been discussed many times. I basically copy pasted my above response from another thread a couple weeks ago.

I was surprised to learn this as well. Something that goes against what we've always been taught, right?! haha. But it definitely makes sense when you really look at it; there are less cons to driving right away as opposed to letting it idle for a 5-7 minutes.

[Jonny550]

Originally Posted by BrianMN

I was surprised to learn this as well. Something that goes against what we've always been taught, right?! haha. But it definitely makes sense when you really look at it; there are less cons to driving right away as opposed to letting it idle for a 5-7 minutes.

i dont even let my car rev down from cold start. Just throw it in 1st and away i go lol.

[Stucks]

It takes my car about the same 15 mins for the oil temp needle to start moving past 160 degrees. I wonder if warm up time is different on cars without the oil cooler vs cars with. My car has the factory oil cooler that comes with the sport package....

Also, I usually let my car idle for 20 seconds after starting it before setting off on a drive. I've always been taught that extensivly long idles are not nessecery. I also try to avoid revving it over 3000 rpms until the oil temp needle is close to 200 degrees.

[s2k_335i]

My car took about 25 minutes to warm up. I hate it when it's about 5 degree and I have to sit in the car waiting for it to warm up.

[hubble bubble]

Went sking yesterday. -25C on the road out, that is about -10 to -15F. Car never got up to full operating temp of 110C (225-230F) despite driving for 45 minutes at 130kmh (80mph).

Old "conventional" wisdom was for old cars that were not made to the same tolerances. New engines (say post 1980-something) are designed and manufactured much better.

[ScaredOnce]

Does it makes sense though, that one might want to still let their engine warm up then take it easy and drive - allowing the rest of the drivetrain to warm up also? Is this really hurting anything, except the pollution factors? I don't really care about saving the planet, but I'd like my Bimmer to last a year or so.

[MatchesMalone]

Originally Posted by ScaredOnce

Does it makes sense though, that one might want to still let their engine warm up then take it easy and drive - allowing the rest of the drivetrain to warm up also?

No. It is better to just start driving. The recommendation from BMW as stated in the owner's manual could not be more clear:

Do not wait for the engine to warm up while the vehicle remains stationary. Start driving right away, but at moderate speeds.

There are numerous other threads that discuss this subject as well, if you're curious.

[**335i**]

well i start a car and go normally not going over 3k rpms untill my oil temprature reaches 70 C

[F104]

Originally Posted by shifterboy45

the coolant temp rises pretty quickly -- you can tell this by turning on the heater.. ull feel the temp go up pretty quickly..

the oil temp thing always get folks -- sounds normal to me

think the heater works well because you have 60+ Amps flowing into item no 3 , an 800W heater. It's not your coolant heating up fast. Water requires twice as much energy to warm up compared to oil. Would be interesting to log both from cold with BT, but no oil temp sensor on mine

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

Its best to wait for the initial advanced warm up to be done and then to start driving casually until temps get up.

15 minutes is normal in these cold temps.... I hate it.

If you let your car sit at idle it would take even longer, I think last time I tried it was nearly 30 minutes to warm up in 30 degree weather having the car sit at idle.

It's amazing cause as soon as its like 70 degrees this car warms up in like a minute. If only we could make it stay this cold in a hot summer day.

[Grendalf]

Originally Posted by Tronner

How long does it take your car to come up to temps? We are having about 40 degree temps here, and it seems to take almost 10-15 minutes or more of driving before my temps get above 160. It seems incredibly long since my STi's seemed to warmup after about 3 minutes or less. Just curious.

Do not compare with your STi because they have a boxer engine and they keep the heat very well since the heads are at the bottom of the motor comparing to an inline motor which are on top.

Subarus are a dream car for that, I am missing this feature of my STi also...

[MKR_DmD]

40 or below it takes about 10 minutes before my oil temp starts to move. I don't think I actually get to proper temps for my drive to work.