Just for fun, here's 4 quick steps that takes no effort at all to have a healthier, more efficient (and therefore more environmentally friendly) engine.
1. Take a few seconds to start up your car
You may have noticed that there's 3 stages in your car's ignition as you turn the key. At the first stage, the battery turns on but nothing works. At the second stage, everything works but your engine isn't on. Finally, the third stage turns on your engine.
Best practice is to turn the key until the second stage. At this point, your dashboard lights will light up and then start going off. In some cars, a sign might appear saying 'System Check'. That's exactly what your engine is doing. The online computer is checking the system, and just like a normal PC, it's better to let it get through with that before doing anything else.
Wait until all the lights on the dashboard have gone off, and the normal display returns to your dashboard. Then turn the key the whole way through to start your engine. This takes less than 3 seconds to do, and it will help your engine run much smoother in the long run.
2. Warm up your car
When you start up your car in the morning, wait until the needle moves out of the blue zone on your temperature gauge. Quite fortunately, in our climate, this takes almost no time at all. I timed myself this morning and it took literally 1 minute, and I was good to go.
If you don't know where your temperature gauge is, it's the one that looks like this on your car.
3. Give it 3 seconds before you start moving
After putting your car in gear, be it automatic or manual, count to 3 before you move. This gives the car time to circulate the fluids that it needs to maintain your engine. It takes less than 3 seconds, but let's be safe rather than sorry.
4. Warm down your car
It doesn't take very long. Just wait 10 seconds from the time you become stationary so that the engine goes into idle. You can use this time to collect your things from in the car, undo your seatbelt, turn off the radio, etc. All it takes is 10 seconds.
