This is the process recommended in the "Quick Tips - Getting Started" section when moving your 8! Their example is moving it at a car wash or in my case backing out of the garage to wash it in the driveway . How critical is it to follow this procedure?

1. Start engine
2. Move vehicle
3. Warm engine for 5-minutes at idle
4. Raise engine speed to 3000 RPM for 10 seconds
5. Return to idle
6. Turn off engine.

Any assistance will be appreciated.

 

Potentially highly critical. Do a search for threads with the word 'flooding'.

 

Yeah, I always follow this procedure because of the potential for flooding.

And don't just go by the "5 minutes" thing. I did this over the weekend and it took longer than 5 minutes for my temp guage to start moving, had to wait 7 minutes before it really started to warm up.

 

The RX8 isn't as prone to flooding as previous rotaries, but there have been a few members that have flooded their engines for not following this procedure.

I would HIGHLY recomend that you follow this procedure is don't want to run into potential problems.

 

...so should this mean that if I take my car to the car wash, I have to explain this procedure to the guy who is moving my car after vacuuming it to the wash? How would I enforce this rule? This can't be serious... what a pain in the a$$.

Also, if I arrive to the car wash, the car's engine is hot and it probably will stay hot enough after a few minutes of the vacuuming procedure. Now, if they have to move the car some 15 yards to get to the wash, that should not be considered 'moving the car while cold' since the engine is still hot.

I can't believe that this would prevent me from going to my favorite car wash place just because the engine would flood... that's insane.

 

A suggestion is a subtle COMMAND

I let mine warm up

 

Nobody said yet in THIS thread that this only applies to COLD engine startup. If it's already warmed-up, like after you drive it to a car wash, then never mind all this.

Just never shut it down COLD.

 

Youguys dont have to wait 5 minutes to start driving the car.

All you have to dois make sure the temperature meter is almost right at the middle mark whenever you turn off the car.

When you have the car off over night over for at least 4 hours the next time youturn it on the temperature meter will be at or below C. As longas you dont turn the car off when its at C and make sure the temperaturemeter is at the middle mark you willbe fine.

 

Obvious suggestion of the week:

My modified procedure for washing the car-
1) Start engine
2) Move car to driveway
3) Start washing the car
4) After 5-10 minutes of washing, raise engine speed to 3000 RPM
5) Stop engine
6) Finish washing the car
7) Start engine and move back into garage

The tricky part here is to start washing the car WHILE IT IS RUNNING. This way, the warm-up time seems to fly by!

 

As I'm sure others will say, it's critical -- I speak from personal experience My baby flooded Sunday afternoon (I backed it out of the garage so I could do some work in the garage). I had a VERY difficult time getting him started again. I suspect the cooler weather was an issue, because I've done this several times since I got my 8, and never had it flood before now.

 

If you're going to wash your car in your driveway and your engine is cold, ie it's the first start since a couple hours + has lapsed, then why not take a quick spin around the block? Your car will warm up quickly driven at low-RPM speeds (more quickly than if you let it just idle to warm up).

I don't see this as a huge annoyance. Could be a minor inconvenience in moving for other reasons, but if you have the time to hand wash ahead of you, you should have a couple minutes to take a quick little warm-up drive...and like Racer X-8 pointed out, if the engine is already warm and you're starting up/moving the car, you don't need to worry about it.

 

now how bad is it to not wait a few minutes before driving the car when it's cold? i never warmed up my previous cars, i would just drive very slow, usually shifting @3000 - 4000 RPM until it was warm...

is it different with the rotary engine? must you warm it up before driving, period?

 

As far as I know with the renesis, you can take off immediately, as long as you keep the engine speed down.

 

For the most part it is not a hassle.
Usually the motor stays warm for over an hour once it has warmed up, so stop/start is no big deal.

The only time I find it anoying is when I need to move the car out of the way when it is cold. This is normally not an issue for me.