I pull my truck out of the garage and park it in the street. It only runs one minute so I can work in the garage. Some times I drive to the store, just 3 miles away. The truck never warms up.
I do run it hard at lease once a week.
Am I doing harm to it with these short bursts?

 

i dont think so but you sure are hurting it's fealings

 

You need to get it out and take a long drive and get it up to operating temps.

 

Yeah, at least 1-2x a week, get it up to operating temps, you'll be good. If you hardly ever run it, keep the fuel tank full.

 

Diesel's are warm blooded engines and preferred to run 24hrs a day unlike gas that wear out faster. I would not think its any good for injectors to never burn off any carbon build up. I would take it out and getter nice and hot at least once a week. Mines a Florida truck and she loves the heat!

 

I think you best do oil changes every 5-6 months as you are not getting the oil hot enough to burn the contaminates in it or the fuel that gets by the rings when you drive it cold for 3 miles at a time. Also it would be a very good idea to do UOA on the oil when you change it.

I think what your doing is hard on the engine so take it out on the Hwy and run it for a few hours non stop so that it gets a chance to heat up the whole engine and that will help burn the carbon off the valves and injectors and stuff in the oil.

If you have a car to drive why not keep the truck parked until you can drive it to get it up to operating temps and then for a minimum of 10 miles once it reaches full operation temp.

JMHO

 

You could always let me warm it up for you once or twice a week.