What is your average warm up time - i.e. from starting up cold in the morning
to being fully warmed up (temp gauge at normal - almost 9 o'clock)?
Assume you do not warm up idling - just drive. Specifically for owners of unmodified 5sfe.
It is different for different outside temperature, of course.
Just trying to troubleshoot my thermostat issues.
Thanks!

out here its like 15 min just sitting, and ten or less while driving normal.

well warm up time is heavily influenced by the ambient temperature, being that you're in nevada and its probably relatively warm from a cold start to normal temp it should be less than 3 miles of driving. the engine heats faster when it has a load on it than when you're just idling, even just turning on the AC when its idling to warm will get the temp up faster.

a classic sign of a bad thermostat is the inability of the engines temp to remain steady. on a cool day with the heat on and the car moving if you watch the temp needle dip, then come back up when you've stopped for a few minutes and have turned the heat off, thats a good indication that the thermostat is sticking open or partially open. you can also just put your hand on the hoses as the engine is idling, they should remain cool for the first few minutes, if they feel as if they're warming right away then thats another possible sign.

I changed the thermostat (OEM toyota) 10 month ago. It warmed up QUICK -
like within two minites - climbed fast - untill about 3 month ago. Now it is very gradual and takes 5-7 min. -
Still OK, I just cannot figure out why this change. All at the same ambient temperature. All gentle
driving. All within a couple miles. Wierd.




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I live in GA, and we have all sorts of weather. Sometimes i have to park my car outside the garage so i literally get all temperatures at cold start. I have an automatic 98 and when i drive without the needle being in the middle (normal), it usually doesn't shift pass about 3000 rpm, and doesn't go into 4th gear until about 5-10 mins down the road. I know... its weird. i often wonder if this is suppose to happen. But yea, usually i crank the car, listen for the engine to "relax a little." I don't know how to put it in words, but i listen to the car and i let the cycles go through a few times. (this is about 10seconds) then i actually put it in gear. At this time the idle is about 1300-1500.

But thats only sometimes, Most of the time, i see the needle below Cold and i just wait for the needle to go a little above it and thats when i start driving. This is about 5-10 minutes and i have a normal idle.

This is a DD... and when i say daily driver, i mean daily driver.. I put 11,000 on the car in 6 months. ( july- 141XXX and december -151XXX and now its 153XXX. So it responds pretty well... I bought the car in july and haven't gotten a tune up and odds and ends.. but i do get oil changes.

my ST warms up in less than 5 minutes to average temp. With just driving..

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thats normal, when the engine coolant is 'cold' the pcm doesnt allow OD and lowers the shift points. OD is off to warm the engine and cat faster, lower shift points are to reduce wear.

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Hah! I remember when I first figured this out on mine. Kinda frustrating at first, but I've learned just to let it sit for a while after it starts and it warms up fairly quick after I get moving.

But yeah, I figured it had something to do with saving the engine & transmission.

manuals also warm up a little faster than autos

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Another reason my auto makes me sad.

But after paying close attention to my gauges this morning after I started up, the shift restriction shuts off about 1/4 up the gauge (1/2 is normal operating temp). So it doesn't have to get all the way to normal operating temp before it'll start shifting normally.

Also keep in mind, if you really REALLY have to, you can bypass this restriction by just dropping it into the lowest gear and then shift "manually". But Toyota did this for a reason so you wouldn't put unnecessary wear on your engine. So use it sparingly.

I always let mine warm up for atleast 10 minutes especially when its cold.