Frequent short trips hurt engine?

[2009Prius]

Every weekday morning I start with a very short drive to the school bus stop, wait 5 to 10 minutes for the school bus with the car off, then another short drive to the preschool, leaving the car off for about 30 to 40 minutes, and then finally drive to work.

Now the weather gets warmer I like to move the car in the middle of the day to get it shaded most of the time. This would add another very short trip.

Are these frequent short trips going to hurt the engine or any other parts of the car? If so how to minimize the damage? Thanks!

[efusco]

It's bad for the environment as those are the highest emissions periods...cold start, cold drives. And it's terrible for your FE.

I'd suggest walking to the bus-stop, walk back to the car for the drive to pre-school. And don't bother moving the car in the afternoon. Your FE and planet will thank you.

But no, it won't hurt the engine.

[Shawn Clark]

The Prius engine is designed for extremely short operational runs. It's a different optimization than what we traditionally think of. No, it should not hurt the Prius engine.

[ceric]

Well, you have to define "hurt engine" first.
There is a reason automakers' OE warranty is not only based on mileage.
If short drives are as good as long drives to vehicles, automakers' OE warranty would have been purely based on mileage alone. You would be looking at "36K miles" warranty rather than "3 yr or 36K miles whichever comes first".
Anyway, don't worry, though. My wife drives our Prius in a similar way you do. Our Prius is still doing very very fine.

[efusco]

BTW, consider an EV button for that short jaunt to the Bus stop if your wife really likes having the car to sit in b/c of weather and such...anything to prevent that ICE start up for no good reason.

[jayman]

I would suggest that sort of short-cycle trip would hurt a conventional vehicle a *lot* more than a Prius. For example, if I subject my FJ to that sort of short cycle, especially in our arctic winter temps, after awhile it runs like s***

[icarus]

While I agree with Evan about limiting cold starts for the good of mpg and the planet,,, any damage to the car would be very slight.

The old rule of thumb was that 90% of all engine wear occurred in the first 5 minutes of operation was arguably true. Cold starts,, with choked carbed engines with rich mixtures led to oil breakdown, ring scoring, a whole bunch of bad stuff. Warm running,,, with all the metal parts expanded to their design sizes and everything is happy.

Modern engines get around this with good fuel injection,,, and the Prius does it by keeping it's coolant in the thermos, so that few starts are really cold starts.

Limit the trips,, limit the cold starts,,, but you aren't hurting anything in the real world.

Icarus