Cold start - What do you do?

Drive off as soon as the oil light's gone off.

If it's a diesel wait about 10 seconds longer until the glow plugs turn off (sometimes the light goes off before the plugs) - found that out from my Uncle (Merc. technician) when he changed the glowplugs in my grandmother's Citroen.

Engines don't like running cold, and driving warms the engine much, much quicker than sitting stationary. Yes, the load on the engine is higher, but as long as there is oil moving around you're not going to do any harm. Also, the bit of the engine that probably has the least oil just after start-up is the camshaft, and the load on that is lowest at about 2500 rpm, IIRC.

I generally drive off, but it is annoying because both ends of my commute are almost straight onto national speed limit roads, with the busy A1 one end of it! I keep the revs and speed low-ish until things are warming up.

On cold frosty mornings, I may hold the revs up a little to promote warming rather than just leave it ticking over.

saw this on ebay thought off this thread

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I usually just turn the key, and weight until I can give a quick blip of the throttle without the engine bogging down, so I don't bog down and stall as I pull away. Usually takes about 30 seconds if that. If for some reason I do leave it idling to warm up (misted windows or the like) I tend to keep it at about 2000-2500rpm with the choke.

Good replies people. I never let the car warm up by just let it ticking over - its just that 10 - 15 seconds when belting up etc...

I'm not a fan of the auto choke on my car (Sierra), it'll tick over at around 1000RPM when cold, then after a minute or so it just speed up to around 1500RPM, and if your in slow moving traffic takes ages to come off choke

out of interest benzboy how long does the bond take to warm up such that it doesn't die?

I too, have also heard that about Triumph engines, also (think it was) fitting a modern spin on oil filter with a non-return valve helps with inital start up on the 6 cyl. Triumph engines, since the crank is starved of oil for a split second on start up.

I always go gentle and don't rev the engine over 3k until its warmed up. It makes me cringe when I see people thrash a cold engine

Hmm, it's hard to say really because it's been getting warmer outside so it's been getting up to temp earlier! I'd say it takes about a mile before it sorts itself out. It's not up to temperature by then but it seems to be warm enough to stop spluttering, bogging down and popping down the manifold. I only need a little choke to start up now, and as soon as it's fired and idling I can take off.

Bear in mind though that my carbs are in pretty poor shape and that's probably causing most of the problems! ;D

If I can physically drive off, I will, but my old mini and the new 106 seem to ice up on the inside of the screen more than the outside, and I can't bear to let anything touch the inside of the glass to scrape it off (ocd?)
I don't often have to go anywhere in the morning (self employed) but if it's cold I'll start the car, put the blowers on at lock it with the spare key while I have a brew watching out of the front window just in case.

The mini would idle at about 2700rpm on choke and rattle every window on the street. The 106 idles at 1100 cold, and rattles every window in Rotherham.

But from my childhood reading (Haynes manual for a beetle and allegro, and the VW manual for a mk1 astra estate which I got out of the glovebox while while waiting for my nan in the supermarket) they all said to "drive off immediately" and it makes sense to me.

Saying that, I don't think it makes any difference for about 75% of the people on here. Setting off from cold straight away or not is the least of my engines worries, poor thing!