How bad is it if you only ever make very short trips?

I have 2016 Tacoma and I live 0.60 miles from work. Instead of walking, I pathetically drive 0.60 miles to work and home 5-days a week. Truck never warms up.
I used to do a lot of weekend trips. Been doing less lately, but still some. Say I never drive the truck anywhere else and just make short 1-2 mile trips daily. How bad would this be for the truck? Is this a concern in modern vehicles?

Wanna know if I need to start walking to work!

 

Personally if I lived 0.6 miles away from work. I would walk, but if being super lazy. Buy electric 2 wheel scooter and ride along to work.

Not sure about the whole warm up phase for some thing that's so short. Probably isn't a good idea, but that's my guess.

 

truck should last you a long time. More of a reason to mod the shit out of it. MPG doesnt matter.

 

I also have a 2016 bought it brand new and it only has 21k miles. I'll drive to the bathroom if I have to.

 

Treat it as 'severe duty'.

Use synthetic lubricants and change them on shortened cycles.

Walk or ride a bike, weather permitting.

 

I drive a beater 97 Civic to work on a my 4 mile commute. Get a cheap beater. Weekend-warrior Taco FTW.

 

Sounds like me. Lazy as fuck live 1.5mi from work. But I'm on my feet all day, busting my knuckles on shitty American cars.

Follow the schedule for severe duty. Change oil every 6mo regardless of mileage.

Screw mpgs. Mod! That's what I say lol

 

Never burn off the condensation that forms if the vehicle doesn't get up to operating temp. It needs a good 20 - 30 mile trip once a week or so. May be folklore, I don't know for sure.

 

Bicycle when the weather cooperates.

 

This gets posted over and over again.
I just don't get it.. Where is the proof?

 

Keep taking it out on the weekends for long drives and you will be fine and flog it a little once it's all heated up to blow out carbon build up from the short trips. I also have a 2014 4runner with 30K miles on it and a 2012 Baja with 27K miles on it with no problems. My current daily is a 2004 Tacoma that just now has over 100K miles on it and has sat for long periods of time and lot's of short trips, I am the original owner BTW. I have Zero issues with it when I change the oil it almost always looks like I just poured it in. Any way at .6 miles I would walk it or bike it but if you are lazy just get a electric skateboard or scooter. Just my .02

 

Proof is in the tan sludge that accumulates in the top end of the motor.
People that make only short trips can remove their fill cap and see if sludge is in the recessed area of the cap. If so, there's moisture.

 

Ive changed oil a bazillion times over the years running a shop with my pops. I see this on multiple vehicles, not just short trippers.

 

Perhaps, but I am confident that driving short trips (without sufficient time at operating temp) is one of the causes of yellow emulsion sludge in the top end.
I had it on my last truck pretty often when trying to get to 10kmi intervals without highway driving.
If we drove a long highway trip, it would often disappear.

 

Not gonna hurt the motor at all.

Might eventually clog a a cat since the cat never gets up to the temp needed to burn off the residual fuel.

Take it on the xway for 30 minutes once a month. You'll be fine.

 

Psshhtttt... easy fix, remote start. Run it for 10 min before heading to work, hop in and enjoy the ac or heat.

 

Thanks for the input! I’m not too worried about it. I do long drives to the mountains most weekends and often run errands during the week. I live in a low humidity environment.

As long as you’re getting it up to temp a couple times a week I wouldn’t think it’d be a problem. If my commute were 10 miles I’d still be starting off with a 1 mile trip on a cold engine - I’d just be driving 9 more miles at temp. So as long as I do slightly longer drives a few times a week, I can’t imagine it’d be an issue.

Also I do have an electric skateboard. Since it was like $1200 the plan was to ride it to work every day so it would pay for itself after ~2 years. But I’m always running late and I often don’t have food at home for lunch so I gotta drive somewhere for lunch anyway. It’s a good idea in theory, but in practice life gets in the way. But I need to get my shit together and start riding it. Makes a lot of sense. Plus I work at City Hall sharing a building with the cops. It’s fun to ride up on my skateboard... cops hate skateboarders but since I work for the City they give me a pass!

Anyway some holier than thou fella at work was giving me shit because he’s moving just as close as me and he made sure I heard him when he said he was gonna walk daily because it’d be crazy to drive every day because it would be TERRIBLE for your engine.

 

You may want to charge the battery once in a while.

 

well from experience living up here in the northern tier, winters were brutally bad for the muffler. driving from usaf dorm to work building was maybe .3 miles before remote start was even a gleam in the 1990's.

lack of heating up the exhaust system when condensate the snow/moisture in the system and puddle in places. would have to replace it every other year or yearly since it would put a hole somewhere in the system.

now that i drive around 15 miles 1-way to work, dont have that issue anymore. and the wife's tundra, she remote starts it in the harsh winters we have up here so we dont have that issue in town with her short drives from home to work.

 

Lol. You've never been to Chicago.

I've lived there, Atlanta, Savannah, and other gooey places. There's not much difference between Atlanta & Chicago, but I wager avg relative humidity is higher in Chicago than Atlanta.

The wider day/night temperature swings in Chicago mean the condensation is more extreme.

Sticking to Toyota's severe conditions regimine should be good enough in Chicago. It worked OK for a '67 Datsun that ran maybe 30 minutes / mo.