Do You Need to Warm Up Your Car?

Reader Contribution by Richard Backus
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Should I warm up my car on cold mornings? Does doing so help or hurt my car? Does doing so waste gas?

Although you might think warming up your car is best on a cold morning, doing so is a bad idea, and not just because it wastes gas.

Cold engines typically want a rich (more fuel) mixture to run well. More than likely, your car uses electronic fuel injection. If your car’s engine is cold, sensors relay that information to a computer, which signals the fuel injectors to stay open longer, allowing more fuel into the engine to help it run while cold. As the engine warms up, the computer signals the injectors to let in less fuel and everything returns to normal, so to speak. Importantly, the faster your engine warms up, the quicker it assumes its most efficient level of operation.

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