Okay, I just got off the phone with LEXUS to double check the warming up of the car.
I told them that I wait atleast 10-15 mins for the RPM's to drop to 1k and they said that's PERFECTLY FINE and wont hurt the car at all.

 

I don't know the answer to OP's question, but dam that sucks!

I don't see why anybody ever need to "leave their car on for 10-15 min for warm up", like kurtz says, if you want to warm the car up, just drive it. Just baby the throttle it till the car gets up to normal operating temperature before you start hammering it.

 

I was always just told that a car is not warmed up until it drops to 1 k RPM.

 

It's actually lower than that for most cars, should be around 600-800rpm. Normal operating temp is around where the temp needle is in the middle

 

You called a dealership or something? I wouldn't trust anyone there to understand the issue here.

Anyways, it won't really hurt your car too much to do it, but it's completely unnecessary unless you really just want to make sure you have warm air in your car before you drive off. Plus, when you idle, your engine is still spinning with no load and cold oil, so it's still wearing down engine parts and going through the useful life of the oil, even if it's doing so very slowly. Not to mention that it's wasting gas and emitting exhaust fumes (which are worst with a cold engine/cats) for no reason.


Be warned that the oil temperature on a cold start on a very cold day is NOT going to be in line with the coolant temperature you see on your gauge... Just because that temperature gets to it's "full" value of near the halfway point doesn't mean the oil is warm. The coolant heats up fairly quickly (3-5 mins), but the oil can take a long time (20-40 minutes) from what I've heard and seen.

So I would wait a bit longer before you start hammering it...

 

I called the 1-800 lexus customer service number
I was actually on hold for like 20 mins because they had to get a specialist.

 

a remote start wont damage the car at all?

 

I don't know who this "specialist" was because I can just about guarantee you that they don't have any engineers working in their customer service centers, but regardless, what I said about warming up your engine is true. If he just told you it was "OK" to warm up your engine, that's technically true. But it's completely unnecessary and wasteful.

 

It shouldn't. Not if they install it right!

 

You guys should post the years of your cars with your experiences as there may be an update in the years. As far as warming the car up IMO it gets unnecessary after 1 minute of idle, there is no turbo so no need to warm it up excessively.

 

I acutally tried it once. I have the key FOB with me in the car and I asked my wife to open the door from outside to see if the doors would unlock and she was unable to unlock it. However, when she had the second key fob with her, the she was able to unlock the doors even though I was in the car with my key fob.

 

Even one minute is not necessary, unless your car has been sitting unused for days, in which case oil may have separated from all the parts of the engine, and idling for 20-40 seconds can circulate it back into the engine.

 

Well, whoever you spoke to is wrong.


I mean, the owners manual for the car even lists excessive idling as one of the things that throws the car into the "severe duty" service schedule.

because idling is bad for your engine.

The manual also mentions there's no need to "warm up" the vehicle.

You'd think the guy who works at lexus would have read the owners manual, but apparently not.


Now, all that said, if you plan to get rid of the car at 100k miles, it's not likely doing enough harm to matter to you, it's just wasting gas and hurting your oil. It's not like the car will explode if you let it idle for an hour.

But if you plan to keep it a long time it's a pretty bad idea.

 

From my understanding, warming up the engines were mainly for the older cars with a carburator? They needed to be warmed up until the idle dropped cuz if you tried to drive off before the engine was warm, it would just sputter, hessitate, and even stall in an automatic transmission. Experienced first hand with my dad's '68 Cougar every morning.
This is all bypassed with the modern FI engines and computerized ignition systems.... so no need to warm up anymore. Personally, I literally count to 5 then drive off.