Hi,

As I work approx 11 miles away from my home so I do around 22 miles a day, I tend to not go on much longer journeys.

I know it's not good to do lots of short journeys as the car doesn't have time to warm up as much as it needs to protect the engine. I also know that every car (Imprezas in particular) need warming up and cooling down properly so that the oil is the right temperature.

The problem is that as I only ever do 11 miles do I need to do anything differently with my driving style?

It's annoying as I don't really put my foot down at all on the commute as by the time it's warmed up I'm at the end of my journey.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Hi, I would'nt worry too much about the cooling down thing. Owners do that to let the turbo cool down after a thrashing: not actually anything to do with the engine. In your case you sound as if you stay off boost until oil is up to temp(which is the right thing to do), so you don't need to let the engine idle when you stop anyway.

Some people go a bit crazy with turbo timers etc, but it is a complete waste of time. Cruising at say 50 using no boost at all is the same for the turbo as sitting on your drive idleing, so you can just pull up and switch the engine off straight away. :thumb:

If you've driven the car hard, give it a minute or so to idle before switching it off. Although as you say, you won't have much chance to do that in 11 miles(I usually give it about 6 or so before using alot of boost).

My oil is at a normal temperature within three miles of home (85 degrees)
So most of your journey is fine IMHO.

HTH

DunxC

Thanks for your replys. I was thinking, also another thing is that I'm using 5w/40 oil which should help with my short journeys.

That's useful info about switching off, thanks Alan. So far I've always let it idle for about 1 minute after every journey but if I don't drive it hard it'll be good to switch if off straight away.

I guess the only way round my constant short journeys is to treat the car (and myself) to a longer journey once a week to blow the cobwebs away :-)

The idling thing is about super-heated turbo's frying their oil onto the shaft if stopped abruptly. There is little need for a "cooling down" procedure if you are just commuting, being stood still with no air-flow is probably only heating things up more in my humble opinion....

DunxC