Does it harm our car engines to run them for a few seconds when moving the cars on the drive?

We change cars around in our drive. This takes seconds rather than minutes. According to a recent article this is doing the petrol engines no good at all. This practice has to continue, but is there anything we can do to alleviate any possible damage such as running the engine on for a minute or two?

Asked on 25 May 2013 by GS, via email

Answered by Honest John
The answers to your problem are either to use electric cars that do not create enormous amounts of condensation and unburned hydrocarbons on start-up, or to pre-heat the internal combustion engines with electrical element pre-heaters. Or to alter your arrangements to minimise the shuffling of vehicles in your parking space.
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