Johnnyma45

I recently went on a week's vacation in LA, and left my 8 with my parents. I returned to find that my dad flooded the engine...apparently he started the car, then started backing out of the garage, when it quit on him. My parents had the car towed to the dealer, who replaced the plugs, and gave them the spiel about revving up to 6k rpm before shutoff, and idling for "no less than 5 minutes" before starting to drive. The tech also said we "must" park it in a garage because it won't work well in the winter, covered in snow. I'm a little upset...because supposedly my original dealer had done the M-Flash, which I've read in previous flooding posts, should have cured this issue. Also, it was like 50 degrees here, not anywhere near cold enough that the car should have killed itself.

For those of you who have driven the 8 in the past winter, what do you think? My apt only has outdoor parking, and with gas prices the way they are there's no way I'm idling 5 minutes each time. I also think that if the dealer knew all this crap they should have told me before I bought this car. Which of course they didn't.

irish8

The dealer is giving you overly protective advice. On a sidenote I always let my 8 warm up for approx 5 mins before driving it. As you know...its not a standard technology pushrod engine. You bought this car knowing it was unique. Letting it run for 5 mins in the morning, it won't cost you anything extra. Driving it cold may cost you more!

Now with all that said I do live in Texas...no snow!!

Sorry to be preaching.......

- Irish

Gord96BRG

Your dealer is full of it. Well, only partly full, but still... as irish8 says, he's being overly conservative. Many of us drove our 8s all last winter with zero problems. I've had my 8 for 15 months, and have never flooded once.

The Renesis doesn't require any special warmup, either - start it, let it idle for 30 seconds, then drive off gently, and take it easy until the oil reaches operating temperature (which takes several minutes longer than the coolant to reach operating temperature) before romping on it. The only possible reason to warm it up for 2 or 3 minutes before driving off is if you have a tendency to stall it, and that would prevent any chance of the rare flooding event from occurring.

Regards,
Gordon

93rdcurrent

What Gordon said...

I live in the Pacific NW and we had temps last year reaching -25*F just as Gordon and many of the Canadian members have experienced. I have had some hard starts in the winter (taking between 3-6 seconds) but didn't experience any flooding. I flooded instead about 2 weeks ago. Please go to the Polls section of the Lounge and vote in my poll regarding floods. I'm trying to get record going to show whether the "M" flash is really helping the flooding issue.

Icemastr

I wouldn't be worried about the cold weather either. Starting the car up and letting it warm up before driving? That came from the old turbo RX-7s , you needed to let the oil warm up and get running thoroughly through the turbocharger before boosting it otherwise it increases wear on the turbocharger.