As someone who has been flying professionally for 40 years, I have always treated aircraft and cars with sympathy.

I was taught to wait until oil in all the gearboxes is warm (turbine engines warm very quickly so no worries there). Use all the power when you need it, treat the aircraft and car with mechanical sympathy but don’t be scared of using the performance available.

The M3 has an oil temp gauge. I never fang it until the oil is properly warm. My Audi TDI which is a cracking little car takes a long time to warm up even though it’s only a 2.0.

A bit
This isn’t just a concern for purely Petrol engines, I suspect in a few years time there will be a lot of PHEVs with shot petrol engines where the driver has been been driving in “Auto” power mode, steps on the loud pedal and the petrol engine cuts in at high revs and cold at motorway speeds. My own PHEV will do up to 85mph in electric mode so it’s no problem keeping up with fast flowing motorway traffic in electric mode and the car pulls away in electric mode from start up by default. If I know I’m going to need faster acceleration than the 87hp electric motor gives I force it into petrol only mode to run the ICE at lower speeds until the temperature gauge shows it’s full up to Normal, especially if I’m taking the back roads to the motorway sliproad. As the throttle is quite sensitive in Auto power mode it is very easy to force a cold ICE to cut in unintentionally. I must say the 3 cylinder 1.5 turbo in my car warms up within 3 miles at country road speeds so it’s not a hardship to warm the engine up, one other issue is with no rev counter and a particularly smooth and quiet engine it can be quite difficult to know when the petrol engine is running as even the temperature gauge is buried deep in the dash menus, there is a lot to be said for old fashioned gauges on a TFT screen sometimes (even if they are digital ones). I know RRS PHEV still has a temperature gauge on the main TFT screen and a rev counter, but that isn’t common with other PHEVs that are basically city cars. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Yeah the Volvo XC90 PHEV had no temperature gauge at all !!! Used to wind me up a lot !

So do we sit and idle or not/

I've been told to drive straight off and just be gentle until things warm up as sitting and idling isn't good for modern engines? Is this wrong? Non JLR Vehicle

Drive straight off. No point in idling a cold engine, it just takes far longer to warm up. MY2016 HSE D SDV6 - gone due to fuel dilution problems.

By the age of 50 you have the face you deserve - George Orwell.

It also isn’t good for your particulate filter ( yes all Petrols built after July 2018 have a PPF) 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW