Never heard of that. Interesting.

Apparently its called "fuel dilution".

Fuel dilution see 5:37

Basically fuel gets into your oil now and burns off when your engine gets to temp and you run it. You aren't getting up to to temp and running it enough to burn it off.

Now that your oil is changed seems like you should let your car warm up before you drive to work and let the drive to work burn the gas out of the oil. Block heater, heated garage, other ideas maybe but thats whats happening. Good luck.

p.s. I would guess a diesel motor wouldn't have that problem.

https://youtu.be/uVd-ZS5bnyY?si=SOE43umrUHPncFlk

Exactly

And yes, running it hot burns it off. I've learned a lot since last years nightmare. It's going ok this year, but the remedy is a pain. Hopefully others on here can read this thread & not have to learn the hard way.

Letting the vehicle warm up idling though would not help my problem. We had that debate at the dealership. That's what the service advisor told me to do. The service manager & a worker there told me do not make a habit of letting it idle more than say 30 seconds before taking off.

People that drive enough don't need to worry about this problem. I'm the rare situation--driving <4k miles per year. The manufacturers don't design them nowadays for short trippers like me.

Maybe getting a diesel would have been a solution. That's 1 idea I hadn't considered.

I haven't seen any proof of that being an issue. It could be true, but ever since I started watching my temp gauge last year, I haven't had an issue. I wait to turn the heater on until the truck is at proper operating temperature. Granted I do other things too now, such as using a block heater, parking in a garage & sometimes taking the long way home. It's amazing how much the heater/defroster effects the coolant temperature. In the rare situation now where my temperature gauge doesn't reach optimal temperature well before I get to work, I put on a ~couple extra miles before stopping. Watching the temp gauge was perhaps the best advice the dealer gave me.