Sat in traffic - engine on or off?

[da_murphster]

Spend a dull amount of time this weekend sat stationary in traffic - moving 100m or so every couple of minutes.

Should I be turning my engine off?

My fans kick in at about 92 degrees and seem to prevent temp going any higher and (suprisingly) if I turn engine off the fans go off (is that normal?)

What is kindest for her?

[BigJL]

I would have thought that keeping the engine running would be better - constantly turning off and on would mean the oil presure keeps dropping and then having to circulate again when switched on.

As long as your fans are handling things and keeping the temp down, it should be fine. Sometimes when it's very hot the oil pressure does seem to drop pretty low (9-10 psi) so I might raise the revs every so often to get it back up.

ETA - Yep, it's normal for the fans to turn off when the engine is off. They don't keep going the way that some cars do.

Edited by BigJL on Monday 28th July 10:37

[Targarama]

On. Heatsoak and constant restarting will kill things faster. Better to keep the fluids circulating. 92 deg is OK. Its just the heatsoak into the passenger compartment that gets tiring...

[da_murphster]

Targarama said:

Its just the heatsoak into the passenger compartment that gets tiring...

On the hottest day of the year with a very hungover grumpy g/f in the pass seat, it truely was tiring!