GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: Mr Savage on 19 September 2013, 01:34
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Right guys so this is something we'll all need to do, or will we? I'm aware theres probably a thousand other threads about this on here but is breaking in a new car myth or fact?
Does anyone have any facts about how long we should "go easy" on our new GTI's and what the best way is of breaking them in? How is everyone going to drive their cars once they get them?
It's going to be so difficult to resist giving the car the beans for a good thousand miles or however long it is we need to drive like an old man!
Cheers,
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I also asked this question when i picked up my GTI. See below for a link:
http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=259078.msg2379170#msg2379170 (http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=259078.msg2379170#msg2379170)
J
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Think about more than the engine with running in.
From a safety point of view, your tyres and brakes won't be at their best for a couple of hundred miles.
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Why start another thread if you think there are other threads about it already? Use the search... :rolleyes:
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Why start another thread if you think there are other threads about it already? Use the search... :rolleyes:
I did use the search, I searched for "breaking in" though instead of running in which returns no results but I know someone must have asked the question previously hence why I said that i'm sure there's another thread on here somewhere. But since I couldn't find it then I didn't think it would cause a major problem if I asked the question on here. :)
Thanks GTI7me, that's very useful and good to hear! Always wondered how you wouldn't be tempted to give it the beans once it's warmed up from the start :evil:
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I intend to rag the sh!t out of mine the moment I collect it.
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I intend to rag the sh!t out of mine the moment I collect it.
Same here, once the engine is up to temperature....
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I intend to rag the sh!t out of mine the moment I collect it.
Is that the difference between "running in" and "breaking in"? :evil:
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I intend to rag the sh!t out of mine the moment I collect it.
Is that the difference between "running in" and "breaking in"? :evil:
Haha :D
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I intend to rag the sh!t out of mine the moment I collect it.
Same here, once the engine is up to temperature....
I thought you weren't supposed to until the first 1000 miles or so?? This running in malarkey is on my head in! I am keeping it under 3000 revs and keeping to like a 1/4 of the throttle as I am paranoid. I have taken to 90 miles.....am I a risk of babying it should I push it a bit more?? I don't want the car to end up with crapy performance coz I was way to gentle in is early days!!!
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I intend to rag the sh!t out of mine the moment I collect it.
Same here, once the engine is up to temperature....
I thought you weren't supposed to until the first 1000 miles or so?? This running in malarkey is on my head in! I am keeping it under 3000 revs and keeping to like a 1/4 of the throttle as I am paranoid. I have taken to 90 miles.....am I a risk of babying it should I push it a bit more?? I don't want the car to end up with crapy performance coz I was way to gentle in is early days!!!
Drive it like you stole it :grin:
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Balls to that, give it the beans! :laugh: I've done about 120 miles so far and although I've not red lined it yet I have taken it over 5k revs a few times now just because I can't resist it - don't worry about performance, that's what it's built for!!
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well how many people do you know of with engine failure because they over revved their new car. I cant think of one.
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well how many people do you know of with engine failure because they over revved their new car. I cant think of one.
Running in these days is more about getting the best out of your car via economy/power/low oil consumption rather than catastrophic engine failure. I've run in one of my VWs badly and had a car with an unhealthy thirst for oil and fuel. Just as important not to baby it as to do too much.
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well how many people do you know of with engine failure because they over revved their new car. I cant think of one.
Running in these days is more about getting the best out of your car via economy/power/low oil consumption rather than catastrophic engine failure. I've run in one of my VWs badly and had a car with an unhealthy thirst for oil and fuel. Just as important not to baby it as to do too much.
Totally. Mixed driving when you first get it is the way forward. And let's face it there's so much traffic around that it's virtually impossible to nail it all the time anyway! But as MH says it's also important to not baby the car as well, it's a performance vehicle so it's built to cope with a few cheeky little blasts!
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well how many people do you know of with engine failure because they over revved their new car. I cant think of one.
Running in these days is more about getting the best out of your car via economy/power/low oil consumption rather than catastrophic engine failure. I've run in one of my VWs badly and had a car with an unhealthy thirst for oil and fuel. Just as important not to baby it as to do too much.
Totally. Mixed driving when you first get it is the way forward. And let's face it there's so much traffic around that it's virtually impossible to nail it all the time anyway! But as MH says it's also important to not baby the car as well, it's a performance vehicle so it's built to cope with a few cheeky little blasts!
Well I gave it a "cheeky" blast this morning and wow it is mental!! And that only moved it to about 3000 revs.....can't imagine what it would be like at 5000!!!
I plan to give it a cheeky blast once every second day or so.....this car is unreal!!
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Do you think any of the demo cars get run in ?just drive like you would normally obviously take it easy for the first few hundred miles just in case the quality control at the factory or dealership missed anything.
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Do you think any of the demo cars get run in ?just drive like you would normally obviously take it easy for the first few hundred miles just in case the quality control at the factory or dealership missed anything.
Fair enough but paranoia is a b!tch and this is my first brand new car!! Once I hit 500 miles its gettin a beatin!! :grin:
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well how many people do you know of with engine failure because they over revved their new car. I cant think of one.
overreved my brand new GT a few years back the second day i had it.. bang, engine failure, back to seller.
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well how many people do you know of with engine failure because they over revved their new car. I cant think of one.
overreved my brand new GT a few years back the second day i had it.. bang, engine failure, back to seller.
I'm sure it've gone bang anyways, but still a right PITA. How long would VW make you wait for a replacement car right now - 2 months if you're lucky?
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When I picked mine up today , I spoke to one of the engineers and he said is stick to under 4000 revs for 500 miles - then enjoy.
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When I picked mine up today , I spoke to one of the engineers and he said is stick to under 4000 revs for 500 miles - then enjoy.
4000 revs is very quick!! I was cruising on about 90 mph and it was way under 4000 revs....
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Okay now sorry for bringing my old thread back up but this is driving me literally insane.
50% of people, including mechanics are telling me to drive it like I stole it or performance will suffer later on.
50% of oeople including VW are saying baby it in and don't go over 3k rpm/half throttle.
Which one is right!?!?!? Find this matter to just be so contradictory with evidence on both sides. With mine being a DSG it makes it even harder as Drive babies it & sport thrashes it so I'm having to use the paddle shifters.
How have you lot been driving your cars?
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Drive it like you stole it if you've got a high performance motorbike, but a car's engine has a hell of a lot more weight to pull, it's not just the engine that needs to bed down - your brakes, tyres, gearbox and clutch need to too.
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So from what I've gathered. Full throttle (pedal to the metal) is bad. Sudden acceleration is bad. Labouring the engine is bad. Driving between 2k-4k revs with progressive pushing of the pedal to about half to 3/4's, using all the gears & varying speed is good.
High speed is bad?
Should you use the full rev band?
I'm losing sleep over this, it's ridiculous lol. Find that I can't enjoy the car while being too nervous that I might break it!
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So from what I've gathered. Full throttle (pedal to the metal) is bad. Sudden acceleration is bad. Labouring the engine is bad. Driving between 2k-4k revs with progressive pushing of the pedal to about half to 3/4's, using all the gears & varying speed is good.
High speed is bad?
Should you use the full rev band?
I'm losing sleep over this, it's ridiculous lol. Find that I can't enjoy the car while being too nervous that I might break it!
Your making far too much of it. Just get in the car and drive normally like you would do any other day of the week.
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So from what I've gathered. Full throttle (pedal to the metal) is bad. Sudden acceleration is bad. Labouring the engine is bad. Driving between 2k-4k revs with progressive pushing of the pedal to about half to 3/4's, using all the gears & varying speed is good.
High speed is bad?
Should you use the full rev band?
I'm losing sleep over this, it's ridiculous lol. Find that I can't enjoy the car while being too nervous that I might break it!
Your making far too much of it. Just get in the car and drive normally like you would do any other day of the week.
Your right Craig. This is my first new car and everyone's scaring me by battering on about how the first 1000 miles are the most important miles in its life and can turn the car into a thirsty, oil drinking slob or a fast, petrol drinking beast.
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If you drive normally you will be absolutely fine. :smiley:. Just enjoy the car and don't worry
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I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure the dealership grease monkeys will have ragged it round the car park moving it for the pdi lol!!
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That's very true! I always wondered what would happen in the case if it arriving with 100 delivery miles too!
Okay then. Lastly, people have been telling me that it's best to do an oil change after 1000 miles too to get rid of all the crap. Is this true as VW don't seem to think it needs to be done.
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That's very true! I always wondered what would happen in the case if it arriving with 100 delivery miles too!
Okay then. Lastly, people have been telling me that it's best to do an oil change after 1000 miles too to get rid of all the crap. Is this true as VW don't seem to think it needs to be done.
Not something any dealership will urge you do or even suggest you do it. The oil filter should be doing a good job of swallowing up any crap the new engine throws out.
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Nice. So it's not needed at all?
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honest john always seems to know what he's talking about
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/running-in-a-petrol-engine/
but ultimately at the end of the day, this isn't an F1 engine, it doesnt need pamering, personally, im not gonna think about running it in im just gonna drive the damn thing
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That's very true! I always wondered what would happen in the case if it arriving with 100 delivery miles too!
Okay then. Lastly, people have been telling me that it's best to do an oil change after 1000 miles too to get rid of all the crap. Is this true as VW don't seem to think it needs to be done.
No, not required. This is a hangover from the days when new cars used to be filled with "running-in oil" and then you would be required to have an oil change within the first 1000 miles. The last cars I saw requiring this were Subarus.
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I've seen so many posts/threads/comments on this subject.
To summarise:-
- Don't give it 'the beans' until the engine has warmed up.
- Don't sit on the redline in every gear until the car has at least done around 1000 Miles.
- Mix your revs/gears/speed
- Use common sense!
- Most importantly: DRIVE THE CAR!
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Cheers chief, good summary.
It's a painful first thousand miles. Does burying the throttle once you've picked up speed in 3rd/4th cause problems? I feel like I'm using a tenth of the performance.
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Cheers chief, good summary.
It's a painful first thousand miles. Does burying the throttle once you've picked up speed in 3rd/4th cause problems? I feel like I'm using a tenth of the performance.
No it shouldn't once you're into the middle of the rev range once in a while. Just avoid putting the engine under undue load (large throttle openings at low-revs) and don't let it labour (too high a gear for the speed) and don't drive around flat out.
In the end, with all the cars I've had, running them in, has been driving fairly normally - the main thing is to vary the load on the engine and transmission... hence a long motorway run at 70mph is not the best... not disastrous... but not the best...
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Surely all this talk of varying revs, not putting too much load on the car and varying speed etc = driving the car as normal. No need for running in with a modern (last 30 years) car! My last car was a Civic Type R and drove it with all desired enthusiasm once warm and no issues with performance or oil consumption at all.
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No chance of bedding mine in i drove it like i stole it half the time only done near 700 miles :grin:
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From the manual:
(http://i1032.photobucket.com/albums/a407/LJS-7/IMG_34181_zps8b65c734.jpg) (http://s1032.photobucket.com/user/LJS-7/media/IMG_34181_zps8b65c734.jpg.html)
(http://i1032.photobucket.com/albums/a407/LJS-7/IMG_34201_zps113cae98.jpg) (http://s1032.photobucket.com/user/LJS-7/media/IMG_34201_zps113cae98.jpg.html)
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I definitely think my car was run in (to 500 miles at least) more gently than I thought I was running it, due to the output being down with using V-power diesel.
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I definitely think my car was run in (to 500 miles at least) more gently than I thought I was running it, due to the output being down with using V-power diesel.
Why did V-Power bring your output down?
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I definitely think my car was run in (to 500 miles at least) more gently than I thought I was running it, due to the output being down with using V-power diesel.
Why did V-Power bring your output down?
V-power diesel isn't as potent as normal Shell, it's just purer due to it's GTL content. It is less dense and has a lower Cetane number. 8% less energy content but costs 6% more. I didn't know this until I looked into it. It will help clean up an older car, but performance/mpg gains on a shiny new one? Nope.
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Never knew that. Is the case the same with unleaded V-Power?
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Never knew that. Is the case the same with unleaded V-Power?
Nope, V-power Shell is a high octane (98?) petrol. If the car is optimised for RON97/98/99 it’ll run better on it.
V-power diesel’s biggest plus point is that it’ll clean up a dirty engine, but if your engine is clean there’s nothing else going for it.