Dear Car Talk: I grew up in the 1950s, in a place where the winters were quite cold. My father was an auto mechanic and we had a neighbor who would start his car outside on a cold morning. Then he would rev the engine for about 15 seconds and then jam the car into reverse and drive away.
It made my dad cringe and say, “One of these days he’s going to throw a rod through the engine block.” He sure did.
Fast forward about 50 years, and my wonderful husband in every way except car care does the same! I mentioned that it might be a good idea to let the car idle until the rpms slow down.
I’m considering buying him a new truck as a gift, but I also cringe at the thought of revving the cold engine like he’s getting ready for a quarter mile run.
Am I wrong and just living in the past? Or, do newer engines still need to be treated well? Thanks! — Linda
Dear Reader: You are not wrong. Even though engines and lubricants are much better now, starting a car in cold weather and accelerating immediately is still one of the worst things you can do.
When the car has been sitting overnight, the vast majority of the oil drains to the bottom of the engine. When you start it the next day, the oil pump sends oil back into the engine as fast as it can. But during those first few seconds, the engine is not very well lubricated.
And if you rev it up for those few seconds, you’re multiplying the wear and tear that occurs during that short, less-than-ideal period of lubrication.
In fact, modern cars don’t require you to hit the accelerator when you start them. The computer reads the engine conditions and sets the idle speed just right, high enough that the engine doesn’t stall, which is usually a few hundred rpm above the normal idle speed.
After 15 or 20 seconds, the idle speed drops automatically, and on a very cold day, that’s when you can gently pull away. So you’re right to be concerned about what your husband might do to a new truck.
My suggestion: buy the truck, Linda. Get the husband another cardigan. Or, if you’re getting him the truck of his dreams, be sure to ask for the remote start feature. This allows you to use the key fob from inside the house to start the truck when it’s cold.
Not only will this prevent your over-anxious speed foot, but it will also make the truck a little closer to being warm and toasty when you get in it. A win-win, right?
It wastes some fuel. So don’t let him start the truck 20 minutes before you leave the house. But a couple of minutes of unsupervised warm-up time will extend the life of the truck in your case. And a heated interior might be enough to convince you to stick with the program, Linda. Good luck.
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Dear Car Talk: I have a 2013 Kia Optima with 144,000 miles. It works great and I’ve only had one problem with it.
Got 98,000 before replacing the front brakes. Since then I’ve driven it another 46,000 miles and I’m on my third set of rotors. They continue to deform.
Now they are starting to warp again just 8,000 miles after they were last replaced. Any reason you can give me? The brake shop has replaced the rotors three times at no cost to me. — Mike
Dear Reader: Well, tell them to get ready for number four, Mike. I can think of four possible reasons why your rotors are warping so quickly.
One is that you have a teenage son who recently got his driver’s license.
The second possibility is that you have a sticky clamp. The caliper is what pushes the brake pads together and presses them against the rotor.
I hope the brake shop checked for sticky calipers. But if one or both front calipers don’t always release when they should, or aren’t releasing at all, you’ll be driving with the brakes always on. This would overheat the rotors and cause them to warp quite quickly.
If the calipers are good, another possibility is that your electric brake booster is faulty. Brake booster multiplies the force applied by the foot on the brake pedal. It is the power of the electric brakes.
And if the booster is failing, it could be applying brake pressure even when your foot isn’t on the pedal. If it is the boost, it would tend to get worse the longer you drive, the more times you apply the brakes.
Like a sticky caliper, this would be like resting your foot on the brake pedal, which would cause the rotors to heat up and warp.
The last possibility is that the brake shop just uses cheap rotors. Not all rotors are created equal. From many years of experience, and many dissatisfied customers who come back to complain, we’ve learned which aftermarket brake parts we can trust and which we can’t. And if we can’t get aftermarket rotors that we trust for a particular car, we’ll get the original equipment rotors from the dealer.
We’ve learned over the years that original equipment rotors always work well, so we’ll often go straight to these, even though they’re more expensive.
The fact that the brake shop continues to give you free rotors without complaint indicates that either they are saints or they are buying them very cheap. So if you have your brake booster and calipers checked, I would have them bring you a set of OEM (original equipment manufacturer) rotors from your nearest Kia dealer.
Offer to pay for the rotors yourself if they do the installation. That seems fair. You’ll get a lot more miles out of your rotors (you got 98,000 out of your first set), and they won’t have to hide in the men’s room every time they see you driving, Mike.
Ray Magliozzi dispenses car advice on Car Talk every Saturday. Email him by visiting him cartalk.com
