How often to you "wring out" your vehicles?

[GMFan]

Daily. The highways here are like a Nascar 500 commute to work. I can be in the right lane being passed while traveling 80mph. Highway merging demands nearly flooring a 4cyl vehicle to merge with traffic on the ramps. IMHO the people who don't "wring out" their 4cyl vehicles when merging onto a highway are a danger. Unless you drive a 6 or 8 cyl you often need to work a 4cyl to get moving. If you don't want to exercise your engine due to cold temps then warm your vehicle up for a few minutes.

Use what the engine was designed to provide and use RPMs when necessary to avoid danger and being a nuisance to other drivers (i.e. merging onto a highway at 40mph because you want to save a few nickles of gas is reckless and self centered).

If you never want to shift your vehicle above 3,000 rpm then you shouldn't have bought an I4.

 

[Koz1]

I had a 2005 civic was about 3 years old started to run funny, drove it at 4000 rpm everywhere for a couple days after warm up which fixed that issue.

 

[rslifkin]

I wind out the motor in the Jeep frequently when it's warmed up enough and conditions allow. In normal driving, it's barely working (even most highway on-ramps don't need it wound past 2500 rpm to get up to 65+ by the end of it). It's fun to wind the thing out and it's certainly not hurting it (still had cross-hatching in the bores when I had the heads off at 172k).

Heck, when I took it down to Watkins Glen for opening weekend this year, it saw north of factory redline a few dozen times between the track time and the drive there and back (stock rev limiter was at 5300, now at 6000, shifts at ~5700 at WOT).

 

[gfh77665]

I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!

 

[korborh]

almost never

 

[19jacobob93]

Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!

That's evil! I love those! And I doubt you'd be doing much damage anyway if it has the Modular v8 haha

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted By: 19jacobob93
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!

That's evil! I love those! And I doubt you'd be doing much damage anyway if it has the Modular v8 haha


Seeing how that thing is a granny car, you are probably doing it some favors by driving it that way. Lol.

They arent much to look at, but I do like them. As well as the Marauder.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!


So you're intentionally trying to harm something you bought for your son?

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!


So you're intentionally trying to harm something you bought for your son?


What harm are you referring to?

 

[kschachn]

When he states that he hates the car, "hammers" it even when stone cold and "punishes" it, one gets the impression he's attempting to harm it, as I noted.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Don't look at WOT as "pushing" the engine. Look at it as "unleashing" it. When you think about it, the throttle is not there to give the engine more air. It's there to restrict the engine to slow it down to an idle or whatever speed.

Opening the throttle isn't pushing it harder. It's restricting it less!

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!


So you're intentionally trying to harm something you bought for your son?

It better than kicking the dog, or the son I suppose.
I tried a WO run coming out of my driveway with my old Neon after a -25C start, just to see what happens. It sounded bad enough that I let off before I was through first gear...

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I hate my son's 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis I bought him about a year ago.

I hammer the thing when I occasionally drive it, and I like to do it when its "stone cold", literally two blocks from my driveway. I punish that sucker!


So you're intentionally trying to harm something you bought for your son?

It better than kicking the dog, or the son I suppose.
I tried a WO run coming out of my driveway with my old Neon after a -25C start, just to see what happens. It sounded bad enough that I let off before I was through first gear...


There was a Jason Aldean lookalike (cowboy hat and all.) at my old job who would WOT his GMC Envoy every time he left work. He worked there during the January 2014 cold spell when it was -15*F about a month straight. You could tell that poor thing was struggling.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
When he states that he hates the car, "hammers" it even when stone cold and "punishes" it, one gets the impression he's attempting to harm it, as I noted.


There are far more effective ways to harm the vehicle, like jumping curbs, filling the radiator with sugar etc.
"Hammering" it in Texas weather will not affect the engine at all with any modern oil and a sane viscosity.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Don't look at WOT as "pushing" the engine. Look at it as "unleashing" it. When you think about it, the throttle is not there to give the engine more air. It's there to restrict the engine to slow it down to an idle or whatever speed.

Opening the throttle isn't pushing it harder. It's restricting it less!

And in the process of letting more air in, you cause the engine to make more power, which increases mechanical stress on most of the parts.

I see what you're saying, but the conclusion needs work.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Don't look at WOT as "pushing" the engine. Look at it as "unleashing" it. When you think about it, the throttle is not there to give the engine more air. It's there to restrict the engine to slow it down to an idle or whatever speed.

Opening the throttle isn't pushing it harder. It's restricting it less!

I relearned that lesson in a

moment. My old skidoo loses its fuel system prime over the summer so you can't use the primer it to get it started(no choke). The easiest way is get it going is to take the slide out of the top of the carb and dump a little gas in there and run it. Well after doing this twice I forgot to put the slide back in and pulled it over... There was a big sucking sound and it sure revved up quickly that way! Fortunately the kill switch was right there and it hadn't started pulling gas through the WO needle jet as the fuel was still coming up the lines... It was primed after that though.
So in summary, trying to run a 2 stroke motor like a diesel requires better fuel control than dumping gas down the top of an open carb...

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
I see what you're saying, but the conclusion needs work.


I know -- it was half in jest, but I also think human nature is to feel that we're "pushing" the engine because we physically push on the throttle pedal. It's perhaps important to separate what we feel as humans from the mechanical nature of it. Similar to how sitting in traffic on a 100*F day seems as if it'd be brutal on an engine (but it's actually not). Or how we feel colder with a wind chill, but a machine feels only the temperature.

 

[EuroGS]

I baby my car a little too much for fuel economy, so I probably don't let it stretch it's legs too much.

I say a couple times a week I'll let her loose and let that Eaton whine

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
I see what you're saying, but the conclusion needs work.


I know -- it was half in jest, but I also think human nature is to feel that we're "pushing" the engine because we physically push on the throttle pedal. It's perhaps important to separate what we feel as humans from the mechanical nature of it. Similar to how sitting in traffic on a 100*F day seems as if it'd be brutal on an engine (but it's actually not). Or how we feel colder with a wind chill, but a machine feels only the temperature.

Fair points.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
I know -- it was half in jest, but I also think human nature is to feel that we're "pushing" the engine because we physically push on the throttle pedal. It's perhaps important to separate what we feel as humans from the mechanical nature of it. Similar to how sitting in traffic on a 100*F day seems as if it'd be brutal on an engine (but it's actually not). Or how we feel colder with a wind chill, but a machine feels only the temperature.


You're absolutely right. Our perception of things is always there.
We hear all the times that certain engines "love" to rev while others "struggle" or "don't like" being in the high RPM range. Fact is that engines will operate at whatever RPM range we choose to operate them at without any troubles, if it's within their design parameters. It is our perception of sound, vibrations etc. that makes us think the engine "doesn't like it" or "loves it" because we either like what we feel/hear or we don't. The engine doesn't care.