When I start mine in the super cold, it will spin up to around 3K-ish, before slowly working down.

Some other interesting things happen though: If I put the trans in Neutral, and let out the clutch, the cold transmission provides drag on the engine.. the rpms drop momentairly before going back up. This did it before and after the clutch replacement last summer (the car is behaving the same this winter as it did last). The rpm's go up and down depending on different loads during this warmup procedure... (remember that your Defroster uses the A/C....)

Also, I have found that it will not try to maintain those revs if you start driving right away. It seems, in gear, that it will still behave as normal, and allow you to creep along the street at 1K in First gear....

And BTW.. Love how fast the little rotary warms up in the cold. I have heat twice as fast in this car as opposed to any modern piston car that I have been in.

 

Astral asks:

"How recurring is the high revving for you? I haven't started the car in 5 degrees yet. I think 22 was the coldest so far. It revved to like 2.5K."


So far it's only happened to me twice in two full winters plus this one. Last night it was about 7 F and it didn't do it.

 

I started at 10deg today and experienced this "wild cold revving": the engine revved up to like 4K, slowly reduced to about 3500 for about 6 seconds, then slowly dropped to 1500rpm over next 5 seconds.

that was pretty wild! so it seems that the behavior normal, but the engine sure sounds "funky" revving that high while being so cold.

 

Not to sound rude, but does anyone else think it's weird that you have to baby this car so much? I mean, when it's 0ºF letting any car sit for a minute may be reasonable, but I can't imagine owning a car where I have to perform some sort of startup ritual everytime I start up the car in less then 70º F weather. Does anyone actually just drive right after turning it on and just keep the revs down below 4500 or so for a few minutes while on the road? Or is this just asking to have the motor life shortened drastically? Info is appreciated.

 

saturn, yes, it's weird to baby this car so much.

i typically let it run for 30 seconds to a minute, and then drive, keeping revs below 4000, sometimes hit 4500. often i do let it run longer, but that's because i'm out getting this in and out of the trunk and such.

it's not asking the motor life to be shortened. IMO, the best way is to let it run for 30 seconds or so, or one minute, depending on the temps, and then keep revs below 4K. then when the temperature hits the middle, i only rev to about 6.5K, i still wait a few minutes (try to make it 4-5) to let all the oil get up to the temperature and then i can rev it all the way.

in fact, by driving gently you are also warming up the rear diff and the tranny, something that doesn't really happen when you're just idling.

idling for long time isn't very good for this engine and this babying will shorten the life more than driving it at less than 4K after 0.5-1 mins.

(all IMO)

 

Me.

While I do try to scrupulously observe the shut-down rules, I don't worry much about any start-up ritual. It gets maybe a few seconds of warm-up while I put on the seat belt and maybe fiddle with the radio, then it gets slow maneuvering while I navigate my small, tight parking lot, then I go. I think there are a number of people around here who baby their car more than is strictly necessary. I dunno, maybe I'm the fool, and I guess we'll find out down the road, but I'm not losing sleep over it.