In the winter, many people idle their car engine after starting it up because they think it needs time to warm up. Not true! Today's fuel-injected engines don't need a warm-up period, and idling for long periods can lead to excessive engine wear.
Worse, cars idling for more than 10 seconds use more gas and create more global warming pollution than simply restarting the engine. Surprised? It's true - the 10-second rule has been proven empirically.
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/climate411/71/when-to-turn-off-your-engine.html