Q—Should I start my car up when it is stored in the winter time? If so, how long should I let it run? –Chuck
A—I do not endorse starting the car routinely in the wintertime unless you can drive it. Starting it up without a full warm up creates more problems that it solves. During warm up, that metal parts get coated with corrosive chemicals that are eliminated when the system gets up to operating temperature. If you decide to drive it, I would recommend a 10- to 20-minute run to get everything up to temp with a few high rpm romps and some hard stops thrown in to clean the flash rust off your brake rotors. Even if it does not help your car, you will feel better; that is what it is all about anyway. –MC