Transmission designed for 10-15 min cold start delay

[MadMax]

10-15 minutes--if it is that long--is NOT normal for a car in this part of the country. I live less than an hour south of the OP, and my temp light goes out with in a few minutes and no more than a mile or so.

So, please don't discount it might be a real problem until it is ascertained that it is only the ECU holding the transmission to third gear until the engine is sufficiently warmed up...

[YAR1S]

Mine has a cold engine delay, wont let you shift into higher gears and rev's quite high in lower gears.... kinda annoying cause I have a massive hill to get up before I come out of my neighborhood..... oh well, I can live with it, if it saves my engine from cold stress.

more like 2-4 mins, 10 mins is tooo long! even for below zero weather.

[PhilD424]

Everytime a person starts their car on a cold day, they should not even move the car until the engine reaches opearting temp. Yeah, I know what it says in the manual and yea that is true that if you drive the car it will warm up faster. BUT, years of just taking off with a cold engine will most likely come back to bite you in the ass 1000s of miles later. Yes you don't have to sit there as long as you do with a carbed car, but you should wait until the green like goes off.

[DandiDani]

we always wait til the light goes off. or my husband just pushes his remote start from inside the apt and then he leaves like 5min later. he is lucky...i want my remote start put on my LB.

[advocate]

The delay is long but we should consider the driving habits of the OP. If she drives very slowly the delay on warming up would be longer than others experience.

However I will admit this is fishy since she is in Texas which is a generally very warm state.

You need to keep in mind though that warm to us and warm to an engine are two very different things so it's not very easy to compare the two.

The best suggestion I've heard so far is to log the delay of the engine's cool coolant temp light and also log how long it takes before it will finally shift into 5th (if on a highway) or 4th (if on regular streets).

[Sodium Duck]

Granted it's Texas, but the OP is talking about it not happening in May and five months later in September it is. Well... it's colder now, right? So you would expect it to start happening now.

And I agree with advocate, cold to us and cold to an engine are two different things.

Sounds like normal operation to me.

[MadMax]

I am located less than an hour away from the OP and my Yaris warms up within 5 minutes/two miles of leaving my house, even with temperatures below freezing. I rarely exceed 40 MPH (because of the speed limit on the road), and it still warms up quickly.

I still think there is something else wrong with her car!

And Phil, that is outdated and erroneous logic; and does apply to modern vehicles which warm up quicker and more efficiently when driven. You just have to be gentle with them until they are, but there is no increased wear and tear on the engine compared to letting the car sit and warm up. As a matter of fact, I have head that method actually does more damage to the engine then driving.

[Sodium Duck]

Well, I think this all needs to be timed out officially then so we know exactly what's going on. Stop watch style.

[Cosmonaut]

for the sake of posing possible causes. would it be possible for the VSS to be malfunc and sending bad signals to the ECU?

and to skew observations a freeze is scheduled for 12/4, ~30F, so consistent conditions are unlikely for the next few days

[PHXDEMON]

Originally Posted by yaris-me

This issue surfaces regularly. The ECU manages the engine and until the engine is warmed up after three to five miles of driving, the upshift is delayed and no upshift from 3rd to 4th. The shifting will normalize after the engine is warmed. The cool engine light stays on till the engine reaches 130 degs, but the engine isn't warmed until 180 degs. I hope this helps.

This. It is normal

[R2D2]

The longest it has ever taken (without the block preheated) for my cold light to go out is 2 mi. However sometimes it can take another .5 miles to finally shift to 4th. This is at 30-40 mph driving as gently as possible.

[kenora]

fwiw...I bought my 09 Yais auto in Feb and drove through several weeks of -35c to -40c weather before spring crawled up to the 50th parallel.
Mine works as already described... (I park in an unheated/unattached icebox of a garage).
I start moving right away, no more than 30 seconds of run time and use the mile or so to the connector street as an opportunity to "slowly" get the engine/drive train up to temperature, yes the cold temp light is on for this.
I'm in D and note the tach shows that its shifting around 2500 or so RPM and will go no further than 3rd gear till about 20 - 30 seconds after the temp light goes out, indicating that the engine has warmed up to at least 54c, by that time I am getting some pleasant but not exactly warm air out of the vents.
The car has fully warmed up and is shifting into D and putting out hot air by the time I have gone 3 miles or so (say 10 minutes into the commute).... but hey... this is at -35c to -40c. And no I haven't mixed up Celsius and Fahrenheit.