Remote start - bad for the engine?

[bryanmichael]

Now that I have the luxury of remote start with my truck and winter is finally getting to PA - wanted to get a public consensus of this topic. There's lots of back and forth on this out there (https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/are-remote-car-starters-bad-for-your-vehicle/), but I wanted to hear from the truck owners themselves...

Have any of you experienced any negative impact from regularly using your remote start? Assume a "within parameters" usage - only using the way it is intended to be used (15 minutes max).

Thanks in advance!
-bryan

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[sbi]

Now that I have the luxury of remote start with my truck and winter is finally getting to PA - wanted to get a public consensus of this topic. There's lots of back and forth on this out there (https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/are-remote-car-starters-bad-for-your-vehicle/), but I wanted to hear from the truck owners themselves...

Have any of you experienced any negative impact from regularly using your remote start? Assume a "within parameters" usage - only using the way it is intended to be used (15 minutes max).

Thanks in advance!
-bryan

There is no difference between remotely start your vehicle vs. walking to it, starting it, and let the systems defrost your windshield.
That being said - it is not a good practice to "warm up" engines, especially not modern engines. Best thing to do is to start the car, some say drive immediately, others - including myself, in super, extreme temp - let it idle for a minute, not more, and then drive. Driving the vehicle is the best and most efficient and healthy way to bring the engine to operating temp.
So if you use the remote start in lieu of standing outside and scrapping the ice than there is nothing wrong. If you use it to warm it up so it'll "run better", like bringing the engine to operating temp - that's the wrong thing to do. I am not sure it is necessarily bad but it certainly isn't good, isn't helping the engine.

 

[3DogKnight]

Now that I have the luxury of remote start with my truck and winter is finally getting to PA - wanted to get a public consensus of this topic. There's lots of back and forth on this out there (https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/are-remote-car-starters-bad-for-your-vehicle/), but I wanted to hear from the truck owners themselves...

Have any of you experienced any negative impact from regularly using your remote start? Assume a "within parameters" usage - only using the way it is intended to be used (15 minutes max).

Thanks in advance!
-bryan

There is no difference between using the remote start feature and simply starting your truck while you're in it. You start it. It runs. Simple.

 

[Pedaldude]

Don't start your truck at all and it won't have any wear!

Engines aren't sealed off completely from the atmosphere and modern engines especially create their own water vapor because of the near perfect stoichiometric ratio of air to fuel. The liquid dripping from your tailpipe and exhaust weep holes is pretty much pure water.

In air cooled aircraft engines, there's actually documented proof that on older engines with unusually low hours, there's accelerated corrosion and lower performance, which in some instances has caused crashes from engines either not performing to their rated output or having catastrophic failures long before their overhaul time.

If your engine and exhaust isn't hot enough to vaporize the water created by combustion or sucked into the engine on a humid day, it will collect inside the engine and accelerate engine wear. This is especially true for those who have incredibly short winter commutes.

It's going to be very specific to each model engine how long it takes to reach operating temperature, some now are equipped with lights indicating whether the vehicle is warmed up or not.

Older iron block engines take longer to warm up than newer thin wall aluminum block engines, my 2001 Navigator with the DOHC 5.4 takes 4X as long to reach operating temperature as my 2021 5.0 F-150 and the Hondas that I drive warm up even faster.

Modern engines are a manufacturing marvel rivaling Swiss watches, they don't need to be warmed up beyond a minute or two, however; it's always a good idea to be easy on the throttle the first few miles, that also allows the transmission to reach operating temperature too.

However, if you only drive a couple miles every day and your truck never fully warms up, I predict that it will have just as much problems if not more than the truck that is being driven a hundred miles.

 

[RedTXV]

I had my 16 F150 for 5 years and had 105k on the clock. Used remote start more than I can remember over those years and never had a problem.

 

[parkerdog]

My 15 super cab 5.0 was like a cop car, I would remote start it to get it warm when super cold out or hot. Irritating that it would shut off. Hardly ever shut it off if I would go somewhere with my older sister especially. I'd drop her at the door and then go sit in the parking lot running so the ac or heat would keep it comfortable. It only had 53,000 miles on it when I sold it back to the dealer for an insane price but lots of idle time. Never used a drop of oil or anything.

I live in the country and I wouldn't go nuts when I first left the driveway but the temp gauge usually was climbing about 1.5 miles down the road. Of course my old 94 bronco with the 351w is the same way and it's got 188,000 miles on it.

 

[DBL R]

I remote start this b daily. I’m trying to be comfy when I drive.

 

[RedundanT]

In my XLT I used to remote start as I was putting my shoes on at the door. On my XL I have to use Ford Pass, which is buggy, so I just start with the key and wait till the RPM calms down before leaving. Excessive idle time is bad and if you do that be sure to use severe duty oil change recomendations.

 

[Hullguy]

Why buy a truck with a motor if you are not going to use it?

 

[12Lariat21]

My only cautionary addition to the discussion is if you do remote start/idle your truck often, you should get you oil changed sooner, due to fuel dilution. At least on the turbo engines. I'm not sure about the coyote v-8, but something to keep in mind.

Ford says change oil every ~10,000 miles
Excessive winter idling, I'd say change it at 7,000 miles or possibly less if you have a short commute.

 

[parkerdog]

I'm too old school plus I don't put a lot of miles on so time is a factor for me. I get the oil changed every three thousand miles sometimes that gets stretched to 3500 if I forget.

Google tracks me on my phone and sends those reports and last year I was under six thousand miles total.

 

[Missmy3/4ton]

Ford says change oil every ~10,000 miles
Excessive winter idling, I'd say change it at 7,000 miles or possibly less if you have a short commute.

Just to add to this, Ford says to not go more than 10k, but to also change it when the computer says to change it. Your computer will adjust your oil change interval based on a lot of conditions; temps, stop/go traffic, short trips, towing, idling, etc. it will almost never be at 10K miles. Mine have been trending closer to 8k.

My two cents on this, if people saw how often 'work' trucks idled in the winter and summer, they would be a lot less worried about 5-10 minutes in the morning. A poor quality oil and filter will do a lot more damage to the long term health of your engine than idling ever will.

 

[Oxford_Powerboost]

It’s really not a big deal whether you do or don’t remote start it. In the cold I often remote start my Powerboost cause I hate to be already rolling and have the engine go from stone cold off all night to 2500rpm immediately. You can run it for 1 minute or 15 minutes, won’t hurt a thing. Oil life monitor tracks your idle time, oil temp, and many other things and will suggest sooner oil changes if you have a lot of remote starts followed by short trips.

A lot of these news articles about remote start are just the environmentally conscious people worried about excessive idling, as engines burn more fuel when they’re cold, and don’t burn as efficiently. And it doesn’t “hurt” a modern engine to be started and driven lightly (emphasis on lightly) 30 seconds later - so for environmentally conscious people, there’s no reason to let it warm up. That message has since been translated through “media telephone” into something else where people will write it’s BAD for your engine to warm it up…I don’t think that’s the case. I wouldn’t let it idle for an hour every day if there’s no need, but I really don’t see that being detrimental either as long as you do your earlier oil changes…

TL;DR, use your truck how you’d like to. Ford gave you the option to remote start. If you want to, do it. If you don’t, don’t. It’ll be alright either way

 

[EF150man]

I remote start this b daily. I’m trying to be comfy when I drive.

Nothing worse than freezing your butt off in a cold truck! Warm that baby up!!!!

 

[snyce1]

Now that I have the luxury of remote start with my truck and winter is finally getting to PA - wanted to get a public consensus of this topic. There's lots of back and forth on this out there (https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/are-remote-car-starters-bad-for-your-vehicle/), but I wanted to hear from the truck owners themselves...

Have any of you experienced any negative impact from regularly using your remote start? Assume a "within parameters" usage - only using the way it is intended to be used (15 minutes max).

Thanks in advance!
-bryan

If i remote start and extend by 15 minutes there has been a computer error several times which resulted in truck undriveable for a short time. Ready light did not come on when i pressed start but gearshift and steering unlocked and engine on but no power to steering .ready light dark over several key cycles .only way to get ready light and steering power was drive very slow for about 5 to 10 feet and truck surged on and ready light went on . For this reason i stopped using remote start until an OTA addresses this issue

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