Motoring Discussion > PHEV - engine cold start Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Mr Moo Replies: 10
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New Wed 21 Aug 19 20:51 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Mr Moo
I think most of us on here with a conventional petrol or diesel car would show some mechanical sympathy after a cold start and treat the motor gently until normal water and oil temperatures were reached.

If you have a PHEV running on battery on a cold day, if you demand maximum acceleration and the petrol / diesel kicks in, presumably the engine will instantly spin round to maximum revs, straight after firing up, which seems madness for engine longevity.

Is there some form of 'pre warming' or coolant circulation when its running on battery, which means that when the engine does kick in, it's effectively not a cold start?
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New Wed 21 Aug 19 21:14 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Lygonos
On very cold starts the ICE will fire up when you set off.

If the engine is cold you won't get full beans.

I'm not aware of any pre-warming of the engine during summer running - I can drive entirely on EV mode for perhaps 10-15 miles at 75mph and the ICE will chime in if the battery goes too low or I kick-down.

I expect the car runs on 0w20 oil so it will circulate very quickly, and as for mechanical wear at least half of the time it is being driven the engine isn't running at all.

It doesn't jolt into life like a bumpstart, I think it starts like stop-start does on most engines these days, and then is brought into sych with the roadspeed via a TC autobox - very smooth, virtually unnoticeable when the ICE kicks in.
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New Wed 21 Aug 19 21:37 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Mr Moo
Cheers Lygonos. I’m considering a PHEV of some sort as a replacement company car for Q1 2020.

A colleague had to have a replacement engine on a BMW 330e. Not sure if that was anything to do with it being a PHEV, or whether it would have failed regardless had it been a 320i/330i.
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New Wed 21 Aug 19 21:49 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Lygonos
Not sure exactly how the engine and electric motor work together in the 330e - it is RWD so presumably the motor is connected to the transmission.

The 225xe has a 90PS electric motor driving the rear wheels and a 136PS 3 cyl petrol turbo on the front so the set-up is quite different with AWD.

Haven't seen any significant issues with owners on www.speakev.com for the 225xe.

Mine is a lease car and I would certainly recommend it as a bit of a sleeper and a decent entry drug to EVs.

It's also about the only PHEV with decent discounts due to it being a fairly invisible small MPV shape rather than a mini-SUV effort.

MINI Countryman PHEV has the same running gear.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 21 Aug 19 at 21:53
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New Wed 21 Aug 19 22:50 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Kevin
..it is RWD so presumably the motor is connected to the transmission.

Correct. I had a 330e as a hire car for a week and it was a huge disappointment. The 4-pot engine is rough, so much so that it's tiring at motorway speeds and I was unsure if it was petrol or diesel. Also there is a horrible delay when asking for more oomph.
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New Wed 21 Aug 19 23:10 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Lygonos
I have the 2 litre is not BMW's finest piece of kit.

The 3 cyl is slightly lumpy on cold idle but quite smooth under way.

BMW use synthetic engine sound through the speakers so it sounds more like a V6 under wide-open throttle than the normal 3-pot thrum.

youtu.be/gQCSqARiaYM?t=8m13s
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New Thu 22 Aug 19 08:32 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Lygonos
>>I have* the 2 litre

*hear


This morning was 14ºC displayed (so car was probably colder from sitting overnight) and the ICE started up when I started driving despite the battery being full with "Full power will be available shortly" displayed.

Within 90 seconds or so full EV mode was back so it must only decide to warm a little rather than to normal operating temp.

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New Sat 24 Aug 19 18:02 
 PHEV - engine cold start - smokie
As far as I recall my ICE only starts on start-up when it's below -2, or was it -5? (Vauxhall Ampera aka Chevy Volt). It isn't directly connected to the wheels, all it does is provides electric power to the drive. The engine speed doesn't vary with your road speed, not directly. I think it runs at 4 different speeds according to load.
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New Sun 1 Sep 19 22:17 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Dave_
The Ampera isn't a true hybrid though; rather a BEV with a range extender ICE.

On the original topic, there are many Priuses on several hundred thousand miles - a lot of them driven with no mechanical sympathy whatsoever. I would be surprised if full-power cold ICE starts whilst in motion were damaging to the longevity of the power unit, I think we'd have heard about it by now.
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New Mon 2 Sep 19 00:29 
 PHEV - engine cold start - smokie
Maybe you are right on the terminology but the Ampera has an ICE engine which kicks in without any warm up as such (often in-motion, as the Prius), so seems relevant to the OP.
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New Tue 3 Sep 19 10:06 
 PHEV - engine cold start - Fursty Ferret
The crankshaft bearings, amongst others, are coated with special polymers that have properties of dry lubricants, such as Polyamide. This aids the lack of the motor oil film and hydrodynamic lubrication when the crankshaft stops, preventing metal-to-metal contact that would otherwise produce accelerated wear on the bearing surfaces.

This is mainly to benefit stop-start technology, but I imagine the same thing applies here. I personally can't see it being a problem, modern oil is fantastic.
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