Do you thrash your car?

timbob

timbob

timbob

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Joined
27 Nov 2002
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Just having a bit of a ponder really, went out last night to see an old mate, who's driving around in an old mini cooper. We were making our way to the pub down his local back roads, and whilst I could keep up in the GTi, I just wasn't prepared to carry that amount of speed into the bends (on a road I didn't know 100%), especially very bumpy corners that had the scuttle shaking and banging like crazy, and the wheel trying to wrench my hands off. For my own personal (and my new car's) safety, I eased off a bit and got to the pub a minute later!

This sort of got me thinking... Whilst I do drive all my cars quite hard using most of the revs etc., I do try and be quite mechanically sympathetic to the car - wait until it's warmed up, don't slam gearchanges home, slow down round very bumpy bends and the like. I always like to keep a car in good condition, and good working order. But if you do thrash a car, it's not like it's going to die... You just wear out the mechanical bits a bit faster, might need brakes, clutches and dampers replacing a bit more often... I don't want to wreck my new car, but on the other hand, it is SO much fun to just throw it into the bends...

Anyway....soooo, how do you drive your cars?!
 
I'm sympathetic to my car but I do drive it properly. I always let it warm up properly first (at least until the temp guage is at 89C) then I drive it like it was meant to be driven, at 8600rpm :)

I never crash it up kerbs or over speed bumps or anything of that nature but it just gets driven quickly, surely that's the whole purpose of a car like this?
 
eidolon said:
I'm sympathetic to my car but I do drive it properly. I always let it warm up properly first (at least until the temp guage is at 89C) then I drive it like it was meant to be driven, at 8600rpm :)

I never crash it up kerbs or over speed bumps or anything of that nature but it just gets driven quickly, surely that's the whole purpose of a car like this?
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Which temp gauge though chap... water or is it oil? Just because the water it at 'temp' doesn't mean the oil is, or the engine is ready for a serious revving...

The nice thing about the Clio is that is has an oil temp and pressure gauge so you can really tell when things are at running temp, rather than guessing with just the water temp. :)
 
Speed bumps I treat very carefully, and I never do up a kerb if I can help it. But what about driving down your average, terribly surfaced B road, with ripple type bumps around the tight corners, that have the car shaking and banging... Bad for the car - structurally - or not really?
 
When I drive around town, I will do between 22-30 MPH, depending on conditions, not thrashing my car.

On areas where the national speed limit applies, I tend to change gear only at the power peaks/high revs and very quickly too so I get the acceleration going.

I don't go fast around bends, just for safetys sake.

I go over speed humps very, slowly - typically 10-20 miles an hour at most.
 
Lowe said:
Which temp gauge though chap... water or is it oil? Just because the water it at 'temp' doesn't mean the oil is, or the engine is ready for a serious revving...

The nice thing about the Clio is that is has an oil temp and pressure gauge so you can really tell when things are at running temp, rather than guessing with just the water temp. :)
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It's the water temp but the Elise won't let you rev it over 5000rpm until it decides that it's safe, the shift light comes on at 5000 instead of the usual 8600rpm to warn you that it's not warm enough yet. It takes a good 10-15 mins before the temp gauge even registers (it only starts measuring once it gets to 72C). Even though that's water temp I think 10-15 mins is enough to get the oil up to temperature.
 
Always drive my cars fairly hard, like most people I'm careful not to go crazy while the engine is cold and don't slam gear changes. Wouldn't say I drive dangerously, especially when there are other cars about.

Few friends comment about my driving and ask why I don't drive slowly, I always question it with why buy a sporty/fast car and drive it slowly, may as well buy a diesel and be done with it, least it's cheaper.
 
Once my car is properly warm I won't think twice about thrashing it.

I don't really slow down for dodgy road surfaces either and if I come up to a hump back bridge on a nice clear straight section of road then I'll go for air every time :p
 
I don't thrash my car for at least 10 mins after the water temp guage has reached it's normal position. But after that i tend to hold it in gear a lot more.
 
While I know I have a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a speed demon, I do have to say that I don't drive too fast for the conditions.

Even from when I passed my test, I didn't do 50mph in a 30 in bad conditions or busy traffic. About 3 months after I bought my first car, I met up with an old mate who had a 1 litre Polo.

His car was a typical boy racer mobile... alloys, stupid spoiler, millions of speakers, chrome mirrors, big exhaust which scraped along the floor... and no front bumper. He was proud to gloat about how he'd written off 2 taxi's on New Years Eve :rolleyes:

Anyway... we went out for a blast around some roads, and even when we went on roads that I drove everyday (long sweeping bends) I just didn't have it in me to drive like him. So much so, that I couldn't keep up with his car. He's now facing charges for driving without insurance and driving while disqualified. He's also had numerous accidents.

These days, I don't really drive my car much. If I'm not using it for work or out to see mates, the car sits outside the house. The odd time that I do go out for a drive, if it's mid-evening and the roads are dry, I absolutely love blasting it around roundabouts. It's even more fun being able to enter a roundabout at speed and have very little body roll.
 
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Depends. I never drive "fast" when I have passengers. Mainly because I have absolutely no right to risk their safety, and also because small cars become less stable when they are full of passengers.

But when it's a nice day with a good safe road, I'll put my foot down and hit the redline a good few times.
 
The GTi6 has an oil temp gauge which is which handy. I tend to ignore the water temp as that's not really important (it heats up quicker than oil!). So at first I won't take it above 3k revs. Then once the oil temp has come up then I'll increase the revs.

Once it's up to temp all hell breaks loose :D Although I tend to drive mainly around town or on motorways so I can't have that much fun :( You should have seen me a couple of weekends ago when I went camping up at Ullswater, I was like a cat who got the cream :D

I'm not too concerned about wearing shocks/brakes/tyres quickly as I only do around 6k miles per year anyway :)

EDIT - Oh to echo the above comments, I'm an angel when I have passengers. I have no right to risk their lives. When I'm on my own though, meh.
 
I wouldn't say I thrash this car. I certainly sometimes (not as often as i'd like due to sub 15MPG when thrashing it) give it some beans, and chuck it into corners, but I am nowhere near as rough as I was with the saxo.

The saxo did indeed get thrashed, but then, that is what it was intended for!
 
Most of the time I take it very easy on my car. In our times of gatsos and increasing traffic density, it's really not worth the effort or stress to give the car a good pasting.
Having said that, give me a nice windy open road with good visibility and I simply love the opportunity to go for it for a while.
 
My problem is, that all my mates bomb around very quickly in old sheds... This mini he's welded up the rust himself, it's only worth £600, interior is knackered... I'd be quite happy to cane that to within an inch of it's life. But then, when I buy a car, I always look hard and find a really nice example, then think to myself - "It'd be a shame to thrash that". But I can't bring myself to buy a shed of a car!
 
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