Hey guys,

 

Proud owner of my23 vrs estate and putting the 2 dogs and 2 girls and heading in central Australia later this year. She'll likely have done around 5k km's by that point. The idea was to stretch her legs but 2nd guessing myself

 

I'm wondering if I should be concerned with cylinder glaze if I'm doing some long and straight legs? There'll be some legs where  there'll be 5-6 hours of straight rd at 110. I reckon at lease 4-5 of those Figured she's well and truely bed in but not 100%..

 

Any feedback from the braintrust please?

1 hour ago, kreeker said:

Hey guys,

 

Proud owner of my23 vrs estate and putting the 2 dogs and 2 girls and heading in central Australia later this year. She'll likely have done around 5k km's by that point. The idea was to stretch her legs but 2nd guessing myself

 

I'm wondering if I should be concerned with cylinder glaze if I'm doing some long and straight legs? There'll be some legs where  there'll be 5-6 hours of straight rd at 110. I reckon at lease 4-5 of those Figured she's well and truely bed in but not 100%..

 

Any feedback from the braintrust please?

I doubt you’ll get much assistance from the UK brains trust, we are very lucky to find 500 meters of straight road.

1 hour ago, kreeker said:

I should be concerned with cylinder glaze if I'm doing some long and straight legs? There'll be some legs where  there'll be 5-6 hours of straight rd at 110

If that's a concern, slow down to 90 for 10 minutes in the hour. Sorted.

Beauty, thank you. Do you think it is a concern or am I being too cautious?

 

Thanks for responding too!

Compared to when I bought my first new car 40 odd years ago I’m not too concerned, but out of habit I do still avoid long steady speed runs for the first couple of thousand miles. Sometimes change my route or periodically I’ll either reduce road speed or drop a gear or two to change the rpm for a few minutes.

Thanks Steve. Probably being a little over cautious but she's my baby. Other cars wouldn't have cared less.  Will proceed as suggested

I've never quite understood the concern for 'glazing' by maintaining a constant speed for a long time in a petrol engine especially in your case where it is going to be under a certain amount of load at 110 kph.

The condition is much more commonly applied to diesel engines subject to very light loads or idling such as can occur for an over-specified diesel generator.

 

I would have thought at 5k km your modern engine was quite well run in, even the manual recommendations for the initial running-in only apply for the first 1k km or so. However if you are still worried then you don't even have to change speed, just occasionally manually change gear.

50 years ago cars required several thousand km running-in period, you even put a sticker on the back warning the driver behind why you were driving so slowly and carefully. Thank goodness those days are over.

 

Anyway enjoy your trip, it is a pretty impressive place to tour and I think you will be surprised how often you be required to change speeds to overtake the many caravans and 100kph restricted trucks, or stopping to let the dogs (and occupants) stretch their legs/drink /pee/poo.  

Edited 9 March, 20233 yr by Gerrycan

I find that VAG diesels from the last 2 decades are not run in until at least 200000 miles.

I still like to do some sort of running-in period, I'll be doing it with my new Octy IV (currently only 400km on the clock). For the first couple of thousand (book says 1,000 km), vary speeds, up and down the gears a bit when you can, maybe no more than couple of hours straight at constant speed (cruise). Don't flog it and don't let it labour. That's just my practice for 'bedding in' an engine, I respect others will have different views...

Cheers guys, I think you're right and I'm probably past any point where I need to worry but to play it safe, might just have to plan on doing a heap of overtaking :). I've had a few new company cars and have never even thought of doing this and they've always worked perfectly regardless of not being babied. I appreciate all the help

Re @J.R. & VAG Diesels over the past 2 decades.

Time will tell you ones sold in the past 5 years with SCR (Adblue) are doing by the time they get to 200,000 miles when they are doing low annual miles and used on short journeys. 

12 hours ago, SouthernComfort said:

That's just my practice for 'bedding in' an engine, I respect others will have different views...

 

No harm in that whatsoever but if you look at the bores of a 200K engine the cross hatching looks like the day it left the factory.

 

You definitely have reason and are doing the right thing, I would say it needs to be more extreme if anything, luckily I will never have the quandary with a new vehicle and by the time I get them they are what they are.

 

When I built race engines my preferred running in(for a road legal vehicle) was to load the car with ballast and blat up and down Bury Hill in the middle of the night on full throttle through the gears gradually increasing the max revs for an hour or so.

 

Otherwise run in on the dyno on full load, on occasions where there was blowby we would sprinkle Ajax cleaning powder into the carb intakes and watch the BHP rise as the blowby and oil burning reduced.

@kreeker, with regard to your trip:

You may be the odd one out driving a 'sports' biased car into that environment, most of the other vehicles there will be awd utes, full off-roaders or 'soft' SUV. 

The RS estate should be brilliant for the tarmac portion but the lack of ground clearance and the RS big wheels (19 inch?) won't be so great on corrugated dirt roads. I've got 17 inch on my 1.4tsi and they are just ok, so choose your dirt roads carefully. If the dirt roads are dry and have just been graded the only problem is dust.

Make sure you check the accuracy of speedometer with a GPS or appropriate app on your phone, as speedometers tend to be a bit optimistic and you want to be travelling at the speed limit to maximise the distance you have to cover. I've always come across at least one speed camera in places you will least expect them on my longer journeys.

Be very careful around dawn and dusk for more strays, usually kangaroos, emus, wombats (solid little creatures and capable of a surprising turn of speed if they dash out and a lot of car damage) and there are the feral donkeys and even camels. I have seen lots of goats on some trips but strangely never as roadkill.

You can get usually get 95 octane (not cheap) at the roadhouses but cannot remember if 98 octane is sold so it might be a good idea to take a bottle of octane enhancer with you if that is your usual preference.

Check tyre pressures and have good time.

If you get the time I'd be interested to read how your trip went.

 

Thanks Gerrycan. I'll be sure to update once I'm back or maybe on the fly. Only planning on doing tarmac rds as agree, don't reckon the RS rims will fare well on dirt.  Hit a small pot hole today and the bang was so loud scared the ### out of my dogs.

 

Good tip on octane boost. Hoping to only use BP as have tried them all and BP consistently outperforms Ampol and Shell's equivalent petrol but guess beggars won't be choosers.  Shell was by far the worst with car sluggish and shocking mileage. Lucky I have petrol cards to all 3 so should be ok (hopefully). Hadn't actually considered that I may not get 98.

 

Is your speedo out on your car? Mine is the first car I've ever seen that is pretty much exactly on the mark. Literally 1km out. Not 5% like all my other cars I've ever had. Tried both s23 and iPhone 13 GPS and both exactly the same. Thought it was a skoda thing lol. 

 

Thanks for all the advice guys, can't wait to stretch her legs!!

7 hours ago, kreeker said:

Thanks Gerrycan. I'll be sure to update once I'm back or maybe on the fly. Only planning on doing tarmac rds as agree, don't reckon the RS rims will fare well on dirt.  Hit a small pot hole today and the bang was so loud scared the ### out of my dogs.

 

Good tip on octane boost. Hoping to only use BP as have tried them all and BP consistently outperforms Ampol and Shell's equivalent petrol but guess beggars won't be choosers.  Shell was by far the worst with car sluggish and shocking mileage. Lucky I have petrol cards to all 3 so should be ok (hopefully). Hadn't actually considered that I may not get 98.

 

Is your speedo out on your car? Mine is the first car I've ever seen that is pretty much exactly on the mark. Literally 1km out. Not 5% like all my other cars I've ever had. Tried both s23 and iPhone 13 GPS and both exactly the same. Thought it was a skoda thing lol. 

 

Thanks for all the advice guys, can't wait to stretch her legs!!

 

A quick look on Motormouth suggests that 98 RON is available in a few roadhouses but my main concern would be the quality as you would have to consider that there would not be many high spec Euro cars doing that sort of journey so the fuel turnover would presumably be quite low and fuel does go 'off' over time.

95 RON would have similar lower sulphur content to 98 RON but is likely to have a bigger turnover so 95 RON with a bit of octane booster might be a better option?

My 1.4tsi is less demanding than yours and happily runs on any brand of 95 RON, I have really not noticed any difference in performance or consumption and tend to buy whatever is cheapest when driving by a station.

Yes my mk3 speedo is about 6% optimistic, my previous mk2 diesel was similar and an even earlier mk1 Santa Fe was as close to 10% optimistic without being actually illegal as it could be. All were bought as brand new cars. Since I did not have a gps with the Santa Fe it took me a while to figure out why I was always doing the last 50km on a long leg in the dark, during drought times and the roadsides infested with 'roos it was b****y dangerous!

Funnily enough my 20 yo Echo town hack is the 'fastest' car I have owned since its speedo is only 2% optimistic  . Really great that yours is so accurate.

I guessing you should get 6.5l/100 on the 110kph sections so should allow a safe 700km between fills, but be warned, the first half of the tank is always 'bigger' than the second half if you go by the fuel level gauge. At half full mark I should only get 25 litres in the 50 litre tank but yup it takes 30 litres.

 

I'd be useless in currently available EV out there, I would suffer so much from range anxiety.

 

Must admit this thread is giving me a hankering to go touring...