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How wrong is it to drive hard after cold start?

hyzteric

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Hi everyone,

I daily drive my 2020 Mustang Ecoboost.
I took great care to drive gently during engine break in.
Now I want to fully enjoy my car using sport mode and all. But I often ride only short distances (less than 10km) to go to the groceries, school with kids, etc.
The car has barely enough time to get hot so I wonder if it is a good idea to drive it hard or if should only drive harder when I actually do longer distances?
Thanks for your input.
Michel
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Mach VII

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Wait for oil and water temp to come up to normal and you will be fine. Computer won't give you full boost until you get there anyways... If it's a manual avoid full throttle if under 2000 rpm in higher gears.
 

SoulHunter91

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Cold start the car and let it warmup for a bit. Usually i let my CHT to reach 150 before i drive off. I also daily drive with sport+ mode
 

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hemistar1

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Hi everyone,

I daily drive my 2020 Mustang Ecoboost.
I took great care to drive gently during engine break in.
Now I want to fully enjoy my car using sport mode and all. But I often ride only short distances (less than 10km) to go to the groceries, school with kids, etc.
The car has barely enough time to get hot so I wonder if it is a good idea to drive it hard or if should only drive harder when I actually do longer distances?
Thanks for your input.
Michel
I am in the same boat my friend. I work at home now and barely drive 10 or 20 miles a week. For weekly chores I force myself to get on the interstate instead of taking the car through town. Even though my grocery store is 4 mile round trip.. I turn it into a 10 mile trip and get on the interstate.

Now although an occasional cold start and fast drive doesnā€™t hurt, I am not an advocate of doing that daily.
 

Elp_jc

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Cold oil is thicker than it should be for hard driving, meaning it doesn't lubricate properly, so you wouldn't be doing any favors to your engine by doing that. But if you just do it every once in a while just to get up to speed, it wouldn't be a big deal. If you do WOT pulls to redline, then it'd be a different story.
 

Interceptor

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don't worry about it, it has a 5/50 on it. It will be sold before the warranty ends. Drive the snot out of it.
 

ice445

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I'm of the mindset that it doens't matter as much as it did in the old days. Modern oils are amazing, especially the synthetics we're using in these cars. As long as you don't hold it at the rev limiter to warm it up every morning, you'll be OK. Just use common sense about it.
 

Arknsawchuck

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I'm a solid NO on cold starting and then hard driving. All it takes is once to damage parts. But hey, if you don't care about your car and taking care of it then by all means do like others have said and drive the snot out of it or drive it like you stole it. I am leaning to you aren't since you are asking and cause you took the time and care to break it in correctly. Like mentioned earlier, take the long way back, always more fun and always better to get that engine to full temp instead of short semi warm trips anyway.
 

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Zooks527

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What's the oil capacity in an EcoBoost?

It's not just oil temperature vis a vis lubrication that matters. All the components of a cold engine (especially a "winter cold" engine) are at physically different sizes than when the engine is fully hot. Bearing clearances are different, the crankshaft is noticeable shorter, and so on. Letting things get hot gets all the parts seated as they "normally" are. If the oil is fully hot, it's a fair assumption that all the lubricated parts are as well.

I'm all for waiting for oil to be up to temp, but I have a 27 mile drive to work, so I'm not in the same place as the OP (6 mile hops). I do know that today, at 34F when I left the driveway, it took 12 miles, 10 of them at 80mph, before the 10 qts in the GT were up to temperature. My assumption is that the EcoBoost will get there quicker.

In any event, for the OP, you should hit the highway or side roads for 30 minutes or more at least once a month, preferably once a week. Those short hops, where your engine never gets fully hot and doesn't get the oil hot enough to boil the condensables out of it, can be murder on a car. "Little old lady / once a week to church" cars are the ones you don't want to buy.
 
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Bikeman315

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don't worry about it, it has a 5/50 on it. It will be sold before the warranty ends. Drive the snot out of it.
John David, please tell OP your kidding. Heā€˜s new here.

I'm of the mindset that it doens't matter as much as it did in the old days. Modern oils are amazing, especially the synthetics we're using in these cars. As long as you don't hold it at the rev limiter to warm it up every morning, you'll be OK. Just use common sense about it.
Maybe you missed the part that OP has an Ecoboost. I had one and would never push that little 4 banger it until all temps were up.
 

Bikeman315

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In any event, for the OP, you should hit the highway or side roads for 30 minutes or more at least once a month, preferably once a week. Those short hops where your engine never gets fully hot don't get the oil hot enough to boil the condensables out of it can be murder on a car. "Little old lady / once a week to church" cars are the ones you don't want to buy.
You also need to do this to keep your battery charged. I got the ā€œremote features disabledā€ message on FordPass and knew a nice long drive, preferably highway, was in order.
 

Gregs24

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Cold start the car and let it warmup for a bit. Usually i let my CHT to reach 150 before i drive off. I also daily drive with sport+ mode
That goes against all commonly held advice which says the best thing is to drive the car. Just idling for ages wastes fuel and only warms the engine up slowly. Quicker to drive it gently for the first few miles and let all of the car and transmission warm up together.
 

NoVaGT

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If your gauge says it's warmed up, drive it like you stole it...
If the OIL GAUGE says it's warmed up, drive it like you stole it....


NOT the temp gauge, the OIL gauge.
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