troyhuynhv

I opted against it due to the car shutting off when the door opens feature.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

It was reported by Car and Driver. Not some conspiracy theory, and NO, they did NOT crash the car. You are missing the whole point anyway. YES OnStar is monitoring your car as soon as some predetermined parameter is violated and the car reaches out to OnStar under the supposition the driver is in trouble.

mjeds

yes it is called passive monitoring, and Lexus does the same thing and I am not missing the point, the vehicle believes a safety parameter was violated, and this only happens if you have an active subscription.

I cannot find anything relating to the article you are talking about, I find multiple car and driver articles that clearly indicate the driver crashed, but nothing that says that OnStar contacted a driver because of "unusual driving patterns"

please link the article you are speaking of.

Davew77

Well, all I know is if Lexus was monitoring my driving habits the police would have already been to my door. I would think pegging the speed limiter would throw up a flag.

danielTRLK

I was sorely disappointed with this "remote start". It's not good to let cars idle and "warm up" the best is to start them, wait 5 seconds then put it in drive and drive slowly. Ensuring oil gets through the entire range of the engine. otherwise not enough pressure in the system and you actually score your engine. Under 20 degress to 0, a 30 second warm up of idle is good, and anything under zero should be idled for about 70 to 90 seconds. Idling is never good for your car.

Davew77

One of the biggest reasons that idling was considered bad for the engine was because of the excess fuel injected into the engine which did not fully combust. That allowed it to leak into the oil and dilute it, as well as to coat the cylinder walls and foul the plugs. Those were the carburetor days and the carburetor was hardly a precision delivery device.

With modern fuel injection the ECU can very accurately deliver the right amount of fuel while idling based on engine temperature. So it can provide just the right amount of fuel to allow it to fully combust. If this was going to be an issue for anyone in less than 200k miles do you really think Lexus would have it on their cars (remote start)? They don't want to tarnish their reputation for having bulletproof engines. I'm sure that's also a big reason why they don't sell their cars with a unlocked ECU.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

My dad always told me the same thing - an engine warms best under load - and his experience spans everything from an 0.49cc *** airplane engine to some rather massive Caterpillar and Cummins stationary generators. Engines should not idle, it's bad for everything, even if they are at full temperature. Stretched cam chains, torsional vibration in the crank...nothing about idling is good even today with fuel injection. Just for those who are "sold" on the wonders of fuel injection, the best fuel delivery system is (sad to say) a carburetor because it is able to atomize fuel better than the best injection systems. It just can't do a better job across a wide range of operating parameters and conditions the way fuel injection can, and despite the best efforts of carburetor engineers, they are not nearly as flexible. Finally, no carburetor can meet modern evaporative emissions standards, and truth be told, this is the most difficult test for any modern vehicle to pass. Tailpipe is dead easy compared to the SHED test.

How does this happen when the ECM is in open loop while on cold cycle? The ECM only applies LTFT and look up table based enrichment on cold cycle, so there's no "precision" delivery until you are at ~176 degrees F coolant temp. Once the minimum coolant temp is achieved, then the ECM uses the wideband input for STFT. Toyota ECM/TCCS documentation and training are very clear on this.

Davew77

Maybe I'm not correct about the precision fuel delivery. But it seems to be a fair assumption.


My uncle has been in automotive repair since the late 1950's, here's his take on it:

The main problem with extended idling was the wasted fuel, fouled spark plugs, and carbon coated combustion chambers from the carburetor delivered fuel system and lesser ignitions systems of the era.

But there was no hard parts damage, no greater wear resulting ... from idling. They were doing valve jobs on cars of that era, late 40's-early 50's Fords, Buicks, Cadillacs, Packards, and Chevy's at about the same mileage on all of them. He also did ring & valve jobs on many cars in the course of their normal service lives, and he didn't see a difference in the service life of the components between cars that were idled a lot compared to cars that were driven a lot; the biggest difference was the cars that were driven short distances, never reaching running temp for long enough to get rid of the moisture and volatiles that might have accumulated in the oil.

I'll take his word over anyone on the internet. He's dismantled engines in more cars than any of us will ever drive.


Edit: If you do a search on the internet you can find posts from people who live in Alaska that let their cars idle for 10+ minutes every day to warm them up in -40 degree temperatures. Their cars still last them in excess of 200k miles, and they aren't even a Lexus.

I've never worried about idling my engines and I've never had an engine fail for any reason other than once when I was young I let an engine run out of oil due to a bad leak and it killed the engine. But it had nothing to do with idling. I doubt that more than 1% of all current RC F owners will own their cars past 200k miles. So why should the other 99% of them worry about something that "could" happen to an engine at 500k miles? I'm sure there will be a lot of other things to worry about long before that anyway. Assuming that idling actually causes any real damage.

mjeds

everyone has a different take on it, but personally where I live in SoCal, idling is pointless it's never cold enough outside to require a standing idle warm up, if we had freezing temps I could see it to a point.

it is also illegal in most states depending on the type of vehicle, for example in CA it is illegal for Commercial Vehicles and Buses over a GWR of 10,000 pounds and ALL diesel vehicles.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production...egulations.pdf

Davew77

That's another thing... I see trucks on the side of the road all of the time with their engines running. Some of those trucks are in service for a million+ miles.

My main point is, if idling has been proven to cause excess engine wear, then where is the proof? So-and-so said this or that is how old wives tales are created. To idle or not to idle... do as you wish. Maybe we should start a new thread on this?

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

https://www.fleet.ford.com/truckbbas...IDLETIMESS.pdf
https://walmart.mobiloil.com/en/webs...r-oil-warranty
http://www.midlanticmachinery.com/av...essive-idling/
http://idlesmart.com/legacy/faq.html

Simple Google search. Idling for extended periods is bad.

danielTRLK

Dave, your a very reasonable guy and I don't discount your grandfather's experience. But this is the fact of the matter, idling is bad not because of fuel dilution, everyone here thinks it is about the fuel dilution and it's true it's not good but that's not why I say that. The reason it's bad to idle is the RC-F will sit at 700 RPMs after a 15 seconds or so (+ or - some seconds). At 700 rpms, your not getting enough pressure in the crank case to circulate the entire oil through out the engine. Any trucker that you know will you usually tell you if you're idling at a truck stop, you gotta rev up the engine every once in a while, and they can't explain why they do it other than that's what they've always done. The reason they rev them up is so they can get oil back into the top of the head and recirculate it. you need to sit at 1500RPMS on the 2UR for oil pressure to be high enough to circulate to the top. Also Idling contributes to excessive soot in your engine. will it run to 200,000miles? probably! but the question is at 200,000 miles is it going to have 420 horsepower or 350? Often times I find people arguing over what things related to oil will do to their engines long term. Granted I like things that last, but I'm more worried about power than I am over a few extra miles. Now if you idle because it's a luxury, at least put some friction modifier in the oil and switch to an oil that is Group 5 or group 5 based, that way you'll minize the damage from idling. and always use Shell Nitro 93.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

You just described my 78 year old dad. I rebuilt my first engine under his tutelage when I was 12. That was a few days short of 45 years ago. He still rebuilds engines for street and competition, and is the guy who does all his own machine work. He's spent a lot of time at dirt tracks racing circle track cars in Eastern Iowa. He's also the one who actively convinced me working on cars isn't a great living.

Davew77

What you say makes sense and I don't have the knowledge to dispute it in a factual manner. Our cars may suffer some small amount of performance loss when getting to the end of it's engine's service life.

But is that because of excess carbon build up, excess engine wear, or is it simply because the engine actually has more mileage on it due to idling than the odometer is reporting? Think about it. Engines that are excessively idled (more than 10 minutes per day for warm up and a car that spends like 50% of it's running time at idle) are going to actually have much more mileage on them than the rest of the car. So at say 200k miles the engine may actually have the equivalent of 400k miles. Of course it's going to have issues sooner than expected based on the odometer reading in this case. Police cars are a great example. They spend a very large percentage of their time at idle. I'd guess it could be anywhere from 50% to 80% of their life is spent at idle. So the engine mileage is going to be much higher than the odometer states.

You can find just as many links that state idling is not that bad too. Do you believe the internet or someone you know who actually works on engines for a living? Carbon buildup might be bad, but it's not going to kill an engine if it is cleaned out every now and then. Also, since I rev my engine to the redline every time I get in it then the little bit of carbon buildup that may be in my engine likely gets burned out before it can accumulate. My engine probably spends 5% of it's time at idle since I use remote start every day.

My uncle also said that to get rid of the excess carbon buildup from excessive idling they used to pour tranny fluid into the throttle body to clean it out. It would smoke really bad until it was burned out, but it cleaned it out and the engine ran better afterwards. I only learned a little bit from him here and there. usually only when I needed his help. But I did help him sometimes. I don't have anywhere near the knowledge on engines that he has.

danielTRLK

The idling reduces the amount of lubrication overall, resulting in additional FD. that FD in return breaks down the oil which in turn eats bearings. Your correct, a few of my police and fire departments blow engines from idling. It's why Ford is finally introducing their taurus and explorer in hybrid formats. Idling is just not good, and your health takes a hit from the fumes getting into the cabin. It's often why in industial applications they don't use miles but rather hours.