Because I have the long commute (160miles round trip), my wife drives the truck to a from work most of the time:( . Her commute is only about 5 miles each way. There is traffic, so the truck is on the road for about 10 minutes each way, even though it is city driving. I tell her it is very important to let it warm up for at least 3 minutes every morning before going to work. Having said that, is this going to be bad for the diesel over time, or not? We take it out more on the weekends and camping, but I am not sure that is enough. I do drive it to work once every week or two, but with these gas prices, thats about it. Any advice?

Where you're in SoCal and it never gets cold, I wouldn't worry much about it. While not probably ideal, you're certainly not going to ruin your engine.

Oil tends to need shorter drain intervals when driven on short trips, so you might want to do oil analysis to establish a good baseline for when it's time to change oil.

Jerry01, Do you live on Sycamore creek?

Warming it up for up to 10 minutes seems to be the threshhold established on the DP, no longer. Our engines/injectors aren't like the big boyz that let em run all the time. Do you have remote start to accomplish this? Certainly makes it convenient. :rolleyes:

In that amount of driving in city traffic the engine will get up to operating temps, the tranny likely won't. There was a post on the forum yesterday, something to do with a GM engineer, where this guy provided some very good intel on engines and oil. You might read that one, but grab a cold one cause it is kind of long. ):h JJ :)

Completly unnecessary to let it warm up in Southern CA, for more than 30 seconds.......IMO

Just wait for oil pressure and maybe 10 seconds, just head out easy after that.

MT, IIRC they are letting the truck run in order to ensure it gets up to operating temps in the short driving distance his wife drives to work. Your right on as far as getting in and hitting the road.

Interestingly I have found that if I let my truck warm up for a couple of minutes before hitting the road it seems to run better. I've heard diesels run better once they are up to operating temps.
Later. JJ :)

Ide say just drive the long way to work rather than just sitting it at idle......

Maybe try the block heater http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/images/smilies/rockon.gif

Same situation for me here in cold MN. The truck may sit for two days, then only driven 2 or 3 miles the next day. I used synthetic oil in the winter and block heater when below 20 at night. No issues after one year...

Thanks guys for the input. Just wanted to make sure all would be good. Maybe a silly question, but how do you go about getting an oil analisis? Goldneye, I live on Acacia drive. How about you? Jerry.

Thanks guys for the input. Just wanted to make sure all would be good. Maybe a silly question, but how do you go about getting an oil analisis? Goldneye, I live on Acacia drive. How about you? Jerry.
Jerry01, I live on Sycamore Creek, a guy down the street just bought a 05' GMC D/A, so I thought whate we're the chances of you being that guy.