4 year old, low mileage car and the Sale of Goods Act.

gord115

hethmar wrote: »

Does this apply for diesels please?

Yes,'cus they take even longer to warm up.

arcon5

My diesel will warm up in about 5-10 minutes when driving steady.... Sit in the car for this time leaving it running and the gauge is unlikely to even move

fivetide

Don't forget, most cars only have a temp gauge for the water. This heats up faster than oil. If your car is showing it is warmed up after 10 minutes, i'd give it another ten before any 'spirited' driving.

forgotmyname

And if you have a turbo engine dont stick thicker oil in it. It will take longer for it to protect the turbo.

My Mondeo used 5/30 its barely thicker than water. People always seem to want to fill with 10/40 or 15/40. Unless you live in a very hot climate then dont do it.

In our winters it will be like trying to pump treacle. That wont protect the engine.

bgarston

gord115 wrote: »

Is the car full service history?

Hi, Thanks for the the reply. Yes the car has got a full Citroen service history and was sold to us a Citroen Approved Used Car.

Ben

bgarston

hethmar wrote: »

Have you looked on a forum for this car to see if its a common fault?

Hi, Thanks for taking the time to post on this thread. I have looked on various forums and the issue ive got is not a common issue. The car is fitted with a PSA TU3A 1400cc Engine. From what I understand the TU Series engine is very robust and is fitted to most of PSA cars from the 1990's and 2000's. Boy racers like them as they are easy to tune, I've read that some people bolt turbos on them. Our last family car (Peugeot 306 Estate) was fitted with a mechanically similar TU5 1600cc engine and I sold that on a couple of years ago with 200,000 miles on the clock - the engine in that was still going strong.

Cheers

Ben

ice_babe

forgotmyname wrote: »

Sitting idle to warm up is not a good way to warm an engine.

Startup and driveaway asap after starting. But without labouring or over revving.

It will warm up a lot faster. And cause less wear on the engine.

Its not so bad on modern cars, But older cars used to get something called bore wash. The extra rich mixture needed to start the car and help warm it up washes the oil off the bores.
So you get increased wear.

Sitting idle its running rich for much much longer compared to driving off much sooner.

This is why some cars last 200,000 miles and others look like they have done 200,000 miles but really only done 60,000.

Take 2 cars. one does 100,000 one mile journey's and take an identical car and drive it 100,000 miles non stop. The wear on the one driven constantly will be much less.

If the one that always does cold starts actually makes it to the end of the test.

Agree, We have a 10 year old celica with 117k on the clock and you would never no her high millage to look at her/drive her. shes just gone through her 4th mot with us last week, straight though like the last 3 Hubby always drives her gently when cold and doesnt do many short runs.

This has made me think about how I drive mine though. My car takes ages to demist and I do start the engine while I demist and de ice. Maybe I should stop this as never realised I could be doing harm.

chrisw

ice_babe wrote: »

My car takes ages to demist and I do start the engine while I demist and de ice. Maybe I should stop this as never realised I could be doing harm.

For me, this is the sensible middle approach. A couple of minutes with the engine running whilst you clear the ice is time well spent. There will be a bit more wear theoretically but for 10? frosty days a year this will be negligible in the scheme of things. Then when you do drive off it's not ice cold and the windows don't ice over again within a few yards.

It's the ones leaving them running for 15-20 minutes until they are toasty warm that are risking wear problems, not to mention breaking the law and invalidating the insurance, unless they're actually sat in it in which case what's the point..