Running the engine in

[pixor]

I was in a Cairo port this year on a cruse liner.

While sitting on one of the upper decks there was a very loud noise of screening car tyres coming from the key side.

On looking over the deck rail the sight to see beggars belief. There were brand new cars in the process of being delivered

to the local dealers, these were lined up 2 and 3 abreast, and were being drag raced to the transporter about half a mile away.

On stopping the cars were braked heavily and swung through 180 degrees and lined up in a straight line.

This provided much amusement to the crowd on board and the "drivers" responded to the cheers.

I had forgotten all about this until now but it does raise an interesting possibility concerning the delivery of new cars.

A previous posting from "pixor" who used to design the software on engine test systems might be able to answer this question.

Would it not be possible to, in some way, restrict the performance of a car such that the engine and other components

were not subject to unnecessary abuse.

I would suggest that cars leave the factory, after undergoing all the usual inspection tests, and are then "regulated" into

the delivery mode, and only when the vehicle is ready for final hand over to the customer does the dealer "de-regulate" it.

Ideally this would be done in front of the customer to give confidence.

I understand that a facility not to dissimilar to this is available on certain VAG cars in North America.

This is acheived by progamming the ignition key in order to control the performance of the car.

The idea being when the kids ( or wife) use the car there is some control over the performance.

It's perfectly possible, in fact I seem to remember there is a 'delivery mode' or some such thing settable in VCDS, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, or what it does.

[ramonford]

It's perfectly possible, in fact I seem to remember there is a 'delivery mode' or some such thing settable in VCDS, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, or what it does.

Thanks for the reply"pixor"

Who any owner/user of VCDS be able to comment further on this please.

[antrich1968]

As per this post I too had company cars for 10 years (new one every 2 years due to high miles) and I used this principle too, only difference was I let the oil get up to temperature before going to the redline.....

I also had several company cars from new (all petrol engines) over a ten year period, I ran them in though, first 500 miles up to about 3000 revs, next 500 up to no more than 4000 revs, once they reached a 1000 miles then they would be regularly be introduced to the rev limiter, non of the cars ever visited a garage apart from when needing a service, at the required service interval.

I ran my CR diesel in using the same approach, also had the oil and filter changed at 1000 miles, and as I own it I have not yet found out if it has a rev limiter !

Suppose how you run it in, depends on a couple of things (1) do you own it and (2) are you going to be keeping for a long time.

Edited 26 November, 2010 by antrich1968

[eccleshill]

It's perfectly possible, in fact I seem to remember there is a 'delivery mode' or some such thing settable in VCDS, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, or what it does.

I remember seeing this somewhere too! I think one of the things it does is disable some of the electrics so the battery doesn't go flat while it is standing around (eg the alarm).

Because I bought my new Octavia from showroom stock I took my test drive in the car I bought. They just did the minimum to get it on the road so the stereo didn't work, passenger airbag was disabled. I guess this was part of the delivery mode setup.

Edited 27 November, 2010 by eccleshill