Does antifreeze help the engine warm itself up?
 

I know antifreeze works by lowering the freezing point, but does it also carry heat more effectively than straight water? Driving a diesel in the winter, I'm way more concerned with getting the coolant temp up rather than keeping it down.

Thanks in advance for answering a noob question!

Simple answer: no.

Detailed answer: The heat capacity of water is primarily due to the extensive hydrogen-bonding and is not significantly influenced by any additive. In fact water has twice the heat capacity of ethylene glycol so the 50-50 mixture actually has a lower heat carrying capacity.

--

Regarding the optimal operating temperature of the car and what, if anything to do to adjust, I'll let others respond.

Thanks! My engine doesn't have any trouble getting to operating temp, I'm just impatient and don't have access to a plug for my block heater.

You can alway partially cover the radiator. This will heat up the engine quicker. But if you are running at normal operating temp while driving I wouldn't cover the radiator as it will cause your operating temp to go up.

Covering the radiator will only help if you have a bad thermostat. Until the thermostat starts to open, the raidiator is cold anyway.

Antifreeze formulations also contain corrosion inhibitors and lubricating agents (think water pump). Running straight water is not a good idea.

Am I wrong to assume that the question is if he should run straight water in winter?

Surely nobody's that silly. :D

Does antifreeze help the engine warm itself up?

I'm going to say yes.

the question really is will a mix of water and antifreeze in an engine achieve operating temp faster than a motor with straight water in it?

however, the question posed in detail asks if water mix absorbs heat better than pure water, and that's a no.

pure water absorbs heat better, and holds it's temp better than mix of antifreeze and water. so the motor will indeed warm up faster with coolant mix than with water.

That sounds like there is something there. :)

You answered the question in the header.

I answered the question in the body of the text.

Hope they grade on a curve.

The propensity for heat transfer is a two-way street. Traffic moves at the same speed in both directions.

yup. and the mixture of the antifreeze is more of an insulator for the engine warming up than pure water would be!

Coolant does indeed
 

improve heat transfer both ways!!
All coolant packages (Antifreeze) contains products known as surfactants which reduce the surface tension of water.
Pure, distilled water has no surface tension and has excellent heat transfer properties. However, the instant you pour the water into the cooling system it picks up contaminants and minerals immediately reducing the water's ability to transfer heat because contaminants (hardness) increase surface tension.

Look up surfactants for detailed information on how this works.

Redline's Water Wetter is a surfactant which reduces the surface tension even more in your cooling system and further improves its heat scavenging and scrubbing ability.

When servicing your cooling system it is always best to use a 50/50% premix coolant unless you have access to distilled or reverse osmosis water. In this case premix the coolant at 50% coolant and 50% distilled or RO water then add to the system.
This helps improve the cooling properties of the mixture as well as reduce the chance of scaling and sludging due to hard or high particulate domestic water.

Coolant should be flushed and replaced every two years.

So to answer the question, coolant (antifreeze) improves the water's ability to remove heat from the hot metal engine surfaces and also improves transfer that heat from the water at the metal surfaces of the radiator.

I believe virtually every technical comment made in this thread is correct.

Way to go!

Just for the record, this is false. Surface tension is a result of intermolecular forces, not impurities.