Better to let run before shutdown?

Probably not the best, but if you don't do it all the time, it's not the worst. I wouldn't sweat it at all if the car automatically shuts down the ICE.

I did have a problem once when it was super cold. That's the one exception. I moved the car just a few feet to get the snowblower over all the parts of my driveway, so the car ran for only a few seconds. That engine really shook and rattled when I started it the next day (after cold soaking overnight, where the temperature really dropped). That's the real time when I should have let the car run until it was warmed up. I shut it down immediately and hit the Google machine. Once I figured it out, I started it back up and the rattles died out fairly quickly.

 

I hear you. We were out in the front yard today, whittling down a mostly dead tree. Around the corner and other side of street, a couple of landscapers showed up in a diesel pickup, to talk to homeowner. Left it running.

About 20 minutes later, air getting redolent, I finally walked over, gestured to the guy still sitting in passenger side, to kill the engine, which he promptly did. Thanked him with a wave.

contractors are bad for this, not sure what the rationale is.

 

I spent a few days in the oil patch with an old timer in his diesel pickup. He just loved to leave that damn thing running while we set up our equipment and took measurements at various sites - choking on diesel fumes and trying to talk over the racket. He was in hog heaven - I was in hell.

 

One of my earliest Prius purchases were window "rain guards." Curved pieces of plastic that allow the windows to be lowered about 1-2" but shelter from ordinary rain. In Dixie, it meant the difference between "hot" and "Scalp is on fire!"

There is a small aerodynamic drag effect and some might cause unusual noise. But compared to head baking heat in the cabin, pick your poison.

Bob Wilson

 

From a quick search, it seems to be mostly based on dated or erroneous info, if not the simple wanting the AC on.

 

They probably don't buy the fuel.....

 

Their windows were down.

 

Mendel - I expect you may be a skinflint (penny pincher) like me.

I agree with you 100% on diesel trucks idling and polluting the air around them for no reason.

I used to start and immediately begin driving the vehicle ever since I first learned to drive in 1968 when gas was a whopping $0.34 a gallon.
Heck that was 12 pop bottles at $0.03 each for the return or my real job at the time - a cook for Kentucky Fried Chicken where I made $0.94 an hour at 16 years old- I thought I had the world by the tail - I would bring home almost $15 for a weeks work!