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by bombcar 1279 days ago
Some vehicles have oil heaters to get the oil to operating temperature before even cranking.

These engines are often large enough to park a car inside, however.

3 comments

My 2018 car (gasoline, turbocharged, direct injection) has coolant and oil temp readouts. The increase in coolant temp from a cold start leads the oil temp by a few minutes (exact time is dependent on ambient temperature and load profile).

Once the oil temp starts to get above 150F it very quickly gets to the operating temp (220F), so I view that as the point that it's okay to go above 3000 RPM.

If there are oil heaters then they must be far away from the oil reservoir temperature sensor and only have a local effect. As you say, that sounds like a feature for very large engines. It's probably a good practice to be gentle to car engines with cold oil.

Street cars have been using coolant/oil heat exchangers to bring oil up to temp faster and regulate its temperature under load since at least 1999 (source: VW's 1.8T, AEB and AWP motors).

https://store.ngpracing.com/acm-oil-cooler-heat-exchanger-1-...

Most engines will have a lower redline until the engine has reached a certain temp
Engine block heaters and oil pan heaters are the norm in the north. Plugs into an electrical outlet.
The most common heater of an industrial engine is for the jacket water. Keeping the entire block heat soaked is the easiest/safest way to heat the oil as well. Using a "prelube pump", which is a low pressure, low volume circulation pump that parallels the main engine driven pump, oil is continuously sent throughout the internal passages