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[duggs]

Question for the mechanics among us.

Is it true or just a "story" that if a car has rarely gone above 70mph most of it's life and then comes in to the hands of a madman like me, who "push's the envelope" when ever he thinks he'll get away with it at speeds up to and dare I say, over a ton on occasions, does an engine "loosen up" and become quicker and more responsive.

I swear over the past couple of months my 2.5  drives a lot better than when I first got her...certainly a lot quicker and I think, quieter as well.

I'm interested in opinions....is it just a myth.

[Timbuk]

I used to live next door to a little old lady once who used to get her metro out of the garage twice a week to do the 2 miles to the shop and back, she did this for years, one day she asked me to have a  quick look at it as it was running rough.

Problem solved after a good thrashing for 50 or so miles

[Entwood]

An engine will "loosen up" in the first 500-1000 miles or so ... used to be called "running in" ... If the car has been driven at slow revs for a long time, then a high rev regime can "clean" things up a bit...

Possibly what you are noticing is a mixture of 2 things ...

Firstly, if you have an auto box ( as all the best miggy's do ), it has an "adaptive mode" where it "learns" the way you drive, so if you push it, and the previous owner didn't, it will now change under a different regime.

Secondly, you have "learned" to drive the car better, so you are no able to get it closer to the natural limits. When it was new to you , you had to respect it as you did not know how it would react, now you do so you can drive it harder.

just my 2.35 p's worth (inc VAT)  

[Vamps]

Years ago I knew a lady who drove a Bedford beagle, always around town and never over 30. Began to run rough, put it in a garage and the mechanic fixed it by taking it for a blast.
1978 Got a new transit company van, first of the MK2. Manual said avoid running it at a constant speed during running in as it would get used to that speed, drove it Flat out from Wolverhampton to  Durham.
 

[Andy B]

A  variation on the theme.
A car that eventually gets exercised is in danger of breaking the top compression ring. In Granny mode the con rods will never get to max temp hence max length. In Boy Racer mode the engine really gets to temp & the con rods will get to temp & get to max length, the wear ridge at the top of the bores that have never ever seen the top ring will now hit/break it cos the throw of the con is just that bit bigger.

[Tommy]

When I was in the forces my OC was given a new Granada every year. He never went about 50 and it always sounded ropey by the end of the year. One year I was asked to drive him 250 miles - leave him there and pick him up 2 days later. Only thrashed it a little bit on the way back and on the return. lolol (I could get away with it as it was a military police car lol). On the way back he asked if I had put the car in the workshops as it seemed to be running very smooth. I said no but didn't tell him the whole story lol He asked to keep the car for 2 years instead of it being replaced

[waspy]

My last car was a Rover 800 Diesel. An old guy had it before me & he'd just tootle about in it never going above seventy.
I had another 800 Diesel before which are like stink for a Diesel. When i first picked up the new 800 she was a flat as a fart in comparison to the old one. So i changed the oil, the filters & ran some injector cleaner through neat, all this made a little difference, but the biggest change was when i started to open her out, all that tootling had built up carbon deposits & few high revs later (hot engine) she was the faster of the two  
I'de still have her if i could've easily got the parts  

It doesn't do an engine good to hammer them all the time & it doesn't to tootle.

[Dave-C]

A mate of mine purchased a Rover SDI 2.6 from a farmer, who had used it to pop into town on market day, it had probably never travelled over 45mph....  Stuart took it onto a motorway and cruised at 70-75mph.... Head Gasket went bang!!!!    It had done 20k at virtually tickover speeds and couldn't cope with the pressure in the cylinders..

Moral of the story, Drive 'em hard from time to time, it's what they're engineered to do...

DC

[duggs]

Thank you for your replies chaps.....Entwood's was especially interesting...kinda nailed it there in my case. Mine IS an AUTO.

Funnily enough last night I stupidly got in to a race, with the wife in the car as well, with a new Range Rover. At 120 with him right up my arse, I came to my sences and pulled over to let him pass BUT for a few seconds I did notice I was smokin' briefly, hopefully she was just having a clean out cause it stopped quite quickly. ?