car takes 10 freakin minutes to warm up! help!!!

i own a 91 ford taurus wagon. its not a bad car. the only issue i have with it is that it takes 10 min to warm up. is there a way to make it warm up faster? i hate sitting there and pressing on the gas. waste of gas and time. it has to get passed the cold point otherwise it will die on me. anybody have any suggestions on what i can do???

Welcome to the forum!

I've moved your thread to the Taurus forum since you are asking a question about a specific vehicle.

There is a good chance the thermostat is stuck open on your Taurus if it takes that long to warm up. A couple of things to check though would be to make sure that you don't have the defroster on the whole time. The defroster will engage the A/C compressor if the ambient temp is above freezing. When the compressor kicks in, it will also engage the engine cooling fan which will reduce the heat of the coolant somewhat. The stalling when cold could be due to either a faulty Idle Air Control (IAC) or Coolant Temperature Sensor (CTS).

If you decided to change out the thermostat and plan to keep the car awhile, it might be in your best interest to change the water pump as well and replace the coolant in the system.

-Rod

The EFI in your taurus is designed to work in all temperatures. If it won't stay running until it is warmed up, something is wrong. The very first thing I would test is the coolant temperature sensor. It tells the computer to inject more or less fuel based on temperature. The next thing I would check is the intake air temp sensor for the same reason.

If that doesn't do the trick, buy a can of starting fluid or brake cleaner and spray down all of the gasket surfaces between the throttle body and the cylinder heads: TB gasket, plenum gasket, intake manifold gasket, all vacuum lines, EGR, brake booster, etc. If the RPM changes when you spray those spots, you have a vacuum leak.

What he means is the heater makes time to heat up.

Question: When it reach operating temp, does it fluctuate or the needle is stable?
If it's stable, the thermostat is good. Otherwise, you know what is wrong...
Needle should be between 3/8 and 1/2. Not less.

About the defroster, A/C engages only when it's warm outside. And it doesn't affect heater a lot anyway, since it heats before coolant starts to reach the main radiator. So it's not that the problem.

Of course, you should not turn on the vent until it reach cold mark. If not, it will warm slowly. Turn off heater until it reach C mark.

You can also increase ethylene glycol concentration up to 75%. It'll help a bit.

If it doesn't help, I don't know. Maybe the car is just designed like that. Which engine size? One or two heaters?

You can also install an infrared heating cushion seat.