Was the same in our household until January when the wife had a fender bender. But I think you're right, women generally have "silly" little accidents where people get out and scratch their heads as to why it happened and then men have accidents where they're getting scraped off the road
Well she is 12 years older than me.....
I know, I look good for my age
When the car idles it doesn't warm up quickly and hence is operating for longer cold. If you just get in and drive off the car warms up far quicker. Of course you shouldn't redline it when it's cold, but it does warm up the engine quicker and results in less wear.
The thing is that by the time the engine's actually got up to temp for the heater to work you've probably already scraped the car fully.
Well with turbo engines the advice is always to keep them off the turbo till the engine is warmed up. All you're doing is wearing the engine for longer whilst you're standing still rather than wearing it less whilst just driving it gently. Modern turbo's are very robust items and whilst you need to obviously take care not to spin them up when the car is cold and not to stop your car 2 seconds after pulling off the motorway when the turbo is spinning at a billion RPM, you don't really need to worry about it that much.
Have a look here
Well my dads 504 has done around the same mileage and has never had the rocker cover off let alone the head. But that was from when French cars were well built and British ones weren't so well built.... there are French cars around from about that age which have done double that without needing a rebuildThe point here is that by the time I've scraped the car (about 2 minutes) the heater is blowing warm enough for my breath not to mist up the windscreen.
My other point being not many people actually keep a new car long enough for it to need an engine rebuild, so a small amount of additional engine wear will have no effect. If it comes to that how many cars actually reach a stage where an engine rebuild is needed, most are scrapped long before that point. My Triumph has just gone over 161,000 miles and is yet to have an engine rebuild (I have had two replacement cylinder heads though)...
I can perhaps understand it on a turdo diseasel tbh for the reasons you've mentioned but on a petrol engine it is wasteful and wears the engine more than it needs to be worn. No two ways about it. Personally I'd rather replace a turbo rather than do any work on the engine but it's six of one half a dozen of the other I guessIts impossible to keep a turbo diesel off the turbo (well mine anyway). It starts to spool at 1300rpm, driving below this is a waste of time. I used to work for one of the largest turbo manufacturers in the world, so have an idea about whats going on
http://www.holset.co.uk/mainsite/files/4_3_5-operating procedures.php
You can't say that idling any car for 2-3mins is bad. You may reduce wear on certain parts, but reduce the life of others.
