Driving a hybrid may save you from cancer

A Prius always warms a cold engine unless you ask for EV mode by pressing the EV button. Even with the EV button, you can't always hold off the engine.

Tom

 

Wonder if your 04 Corolla is worse for fumes for some reason, like design flaw or exhaust leak. CO might be high too.
Prius does not have this issue even though engine goes on, to my knowledge. Might be interesting to monitor CO though, some CO detectors give a read out.

 

Any car with an ICE is a polluter when cold, some are better than others, and the prius is certainly one of the better ones, but it still isn't as clean cold as it is when fully warmed up. The idea that you are somehow leading yourself to an early death just from the fan running when you start up your car is just so out there. Unless you are running a hose from your tailpipe into your gas mask. Even in a closed garage. Unless you spend some quality time doing it.
This is true for a couple of reasons, one the HIVAC system pulls air from the front of the car, not the tailpipe of the car.
The Corolla even when cold, isn't exactly a gas guzzler. There is such a small amount of fuel being consumed that the emissions are still minimal.
You walk around a shopping center parking lot, right? You are going to breath in fumes there as well.
Walk down a street, cars going by? hello fumes. But with modern cars, the fumes are minimal. Stand behind a car from the 70's and you will notice those fumes.

Emissions from any modern car is so minimal. As long as you aren't in an enclosed space, you aren't breathing in much more than is already in our air from other sources, including the other cars on the road. It would hardly be measurable at a point more than a few feet from the tailpipe. You might actually, and I don't know, be worse off with the window open than the windows closed.

As much as I love my Prius, and am an advocate for it, buying it because of fear of inhalation of exhaust gas at start up is just so out of this world ridiculous that I honestly wonder if this is an The Onion" post.

You would of course avoid the problem all together with an electric car, but really, the difference in the air you breath, is going to be so infentesimaly small, and not have any effect on your life expectancy. Unless you have a very specific health issue.

 

you could also just turn on recirculate while you're backing up.

 

To prevent the ICE from firing up shortly after starting, you must promptly push the EV button AND the engine temperature must be above 68F.

The later condition may frequently work for you in SoCal. But in my climate, it typically applies only a handful of mornings per year. And none so far this year, with our abnormally cool summer.

 

...I know, but I was assuming rapid death might be the greater safety concern.

 

Sounds like the OP's Corolla needs some engine work.

Tom

 

Why don't you just back into the parking spot?

 

Clearly then you need to get your car repaired. Something is wrong.

I only mentioned Cancer in my post, because you mentioned it in your original.

 

One solution: Shut off the fan before you shut off the car. Then it will not be running when you do a cold start. You then wait for the engine to heat up before you turn on the heater and fan. (In hot weather you'd have to suffer with the windows closed until you've gotten out of that exhaust cloud.)

And to correct an earlier post: (at least with regard to my 2004) the EV switch will prevent the ICE from starting if you engage it within a few seconds (ten?) of starting the car UNLESS the heater is on. If you shut off the heater before turning off the car, then you can prevent the ICE from starting when you start the car. HOWEVER, under most circumstances this is a bad idea. Normally you want the ICE to start and warm up before you are driving hard. But in the OP's case, assuming a similar fault to his Corolla, this would allow backing out of the garage before producing exhaust. Or when you are going to move the car only a short distance and then shut it off again.

 

You might have a leak in the exhaust system - I had to have a gasket replaced to seal the system on my honda (with similar mileage).

 

Toyota isn't a guarantee that something can't break on a car. If it is that bad, something is wrong. It is time to get that Corolla into a shop. Has drivable or fuel economy changed? Those might accompany an exhaust leak. The unburnt fuel makes it sound like the car is puffing out a burst of smoke like an old, out of tune diesel on start up.

An EV mode may spare you the discomfort, but it would only mask the problem.

 

I'm thinking he meant driving an EV may save you from cancer.



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IMHO you get much more exposure while you drive from an old car/school bus/truck in front of you.

Yes any newer ULEV car would fix this problem; they either pre-heat converter or capture initial surge and burn it later

 

I'm sure that expouse is way less meaningful than all the other crap you get, like all the sewer we have in our jacked up foods now, all are messed up by pesticides and hormones.

 

The mandatory DMV smog check would probably have revealed the trouble as well, albeit later than sooner.

I know that many Toyotas can go 200k miles or more on the original cat.