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What you want to do is get the car at standard operating temperature a lot sooner than just letting the car sit there and eventually get up to 210-220 degrees F. When you start up the car up and just drive the car normally, you will bring up the engine temperature a lot sooner thus it will start thinning out the oil in the motor, and it can get on with its lubrication and heat transfer job . In the winter time and even in the summer time, when the motor is cool, the oil tends to sludge up because the oil molecules are more compacted together. When engine heat is introduced throughout the motor, the oil molecules start to move around more and more as heat is built up. Each oil depending on what grade you are running is designed to either run in really cold weather, really warm weather or even some oils are produced for heavy heat transfer and lubrication for race applications. Yes, If you are running the right oil grade in your car for your specific climate, it will resist sludging in those extreme temperatures. But the engine still needs to thin out the motor oil so that it can penetrate those extremely tight oil galleries, passageways, and channels. Do you think thick, sludgey oil can do that? When you guys let your cars just sit there for even 10 minutes to "warm" up, its still revving really high throughout those 10 minutes and your possibily starving the engine for the right lubrication and heat transfer it needs. The reason why your engine idles a lot higher at cold start up is because the engine is trying to stay within a safe rpm range and yet trying to get engine temperatures up as soon as possible. I guarantee that if you run a car at idle for even 10 mins, the wear and tear on the motor will be more significant than one that is started up and driven with some sanity. Thats why a lot of the major car manufacturers out there give you the option to purchase the engine heater accessory for cars that are operated in locations of extreme cold conditions.

In order for engine lubrication and heat transfer to properly work, the oil needs to be thin enough to penetrate those tight 0.000X" areas within your rod bearings, crank bearings, oil passageways, etc. Yes you are right, if the engine temperature is brought up quicker than just idle rpms and temperatures, you can get that engine running lubed and much more safely in probably less than half the time. And yes, oil needs to be at its designed temperature for it work 100% properly.

Okay, now we are dealing with something totally different. We are dealing with the coolant system of the car and that can open a big fat can of worms when dealing with cold weather. For instance, if your ethelyne glycol (anti-freeze) and water mixture were way off from a 50/50 mix, that could of killed your killed your radiator. If your thermostat was malfunctioning and stuck shut, that could pose problems in your coolant system. If you didnt do a coolant change for a long period of time, that could allow scaling (rusting) in your coolant passageways/channels and could be really devastating to a coolant system. I could go on and on with that statement. Losing P/S on the car tells me that either a belt or pulley on your topaz could of went bad and you can bet that if that were to happen, your water pump would probably fail, thus could of caused another possibility the coolant system failed. See, you cant just blame not letting your car "warm" up was the reason why your coolant system failed. Two completely different systems on the car.......

 
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by warm up the car do you mean fart in the car? cuz, yes, I do..occasionaly.

 
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^lol, no dont think thats what is meant in this thread heheh

 
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hm..

i usually warm up...1 to 2 minutes in winter..

less than 1 minute in summer...that's good enough for the juices to flow, i think..

just look at the clock on ur radio....let it change 1 digit...and roll ur car...

 
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Best way to warm it up. Drive the car but not at a high RPM.

 
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in the winter i let it warm up for about 5-7 minutes.

on warmer days i warm it up for about a minute, this allows the the engine oil to work its way through the engine and lubricate all the parts. the oils very thin anyways and it flows faster(5W20).

i remember a mechanic telling me once that when your engine warms up and your about drive you should still drive slow for the first 3-5 minutes. he said this allows your other mechanical moving parts to warm up and/ort lubricated (tranny, tires,etc)