Fact or Fiction - The Italian Tune-Up

Fact or Fiction - The Italian Tune-Up

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Discussion

ToothbrushMan

Original Poster:

1,770 posts

124 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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Heard this mentioned a few times recently and it got me wondering whether its all a load of tosh or not.

If your car is feeling a bit sluggish or just not running as you seem to remember it once did does thrashing it up a fast bit of road and back really do anything at all to bring it back to life?

In my eyes going out for an italian tune up caning your car along a fast A road or whatever is available when the car is seemingly not in full health seems counter intuitive - I would be worried that booting it along might actually make the problem worse!

What do people make of this motoring old wives tale - a myth or is there any advantages to it?

How bad has an engine got to be to benefit from a real opening of the taps thrash?

Pericoloso

44,044 posts

162 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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Fact.....sometimes.
It's obviously not going to work every time.
If a car has been chugging round town,hardly getting properly warmed up,a quick thrash will certainly clear the tubes a bit.

MDMA .

8,849 posts

100 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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More for older cars that were running on carbs. Quick blast out now and again after sitting for a while.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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MDMA . said:
More for older cars that were running on carbs. Quick blast out now and again after sitting for a while.
I used to take my old Mini for a proper thrash before the MoT in an attempt to get the emissions down. It would often need a tweek on the carb too, which then got adjusted back in the car park after the test laugh

steveo3002

10,494 posts

173 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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fact -it works

not doing anything out of the ordinary just using the full rev range , gets the oil hot and burns off any condensation , blows away any cobwebs etc

rainmakerraw

1,222 posts

125 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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When you bear in mind that the motoring majority - that is to say, the likes of your Aunt Hetty who thinks it's all a bit of a scary palaver - never exceed 2,000rpm to get 'more mpg' or 'save the planet' or whatever, a good run out through the gears once in a while can only do it good. Carbon burns off at higher temperatures, turbos (especially the variable vane type) need to stretch themselves, and those ECUs that 'learn' your driving style get a bit of a reset if you stretch the car's legs a bit. A car wants to be worked, and - as our Reg Local puts it - will wag its tail like a dog after a proper hard cross country run. I always find that the MPG improves for a couple of days afterwards too, once everything has had a good stretch and blown out the cobwebs.

I coach for RoSPA and the sheer number of Associates who don't exceed ~2k RPM, ever, is eye opening. When questioned, even those with petrols often tell me they don't want to break the engine as 'it gets noisy'. An hour out across the B roads soon sorts that lol.

BrassMan

1,482 posts

188 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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True, kind of.

I had a car that was feeling the effects of insufficient use. I moved house and began putting a lot of motorway miles on it and the engine smoothed right out. I'm pretty sure that the intermittent use (six weeks on, six weeks off) was what eventually killed it.

Garvin

5,158 posts

176 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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MDMA . said:
More for older cars that were running on carbs. Quick blast out now and again after sitting for a while.
This. Fuel injected cars do not benefit so much but the old carbytootered cars definitely do.

Many moons ago I used to take Mrs Garvin’s ‘classic’ 850 mini and both her MG Metros out for a run once a month just to check they were running OK. We lived half way between junctions onto the M5 at the time - the routine was a 5 mile warm up before joining the motorway, a 10 mile ‘ragging’ down the motorway followed by a 5 mile warm down back home. When Mrs Garvin next took the car out she would ask what witchcraft I had applied to it as it was going so well. It took me ages before I plucked up courage to explain and take her out to demonstrate the ‘italian tune up’ method. She was both impressed (with the result) and unimpressed (with the treatment of the cars).

Since then all her cars have been fuel injected and respond nowhere near as good to a thorough ragging. I also suspect that modern additives to fuel help keep things a lot cleaner than of yore.


DickyC

49,549 posts

197 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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Mrs C's elderly SLK; shops and back, shops and back, for a month or six weeks. Then an Italian Tune Up by me. She always says it feels better and asks what did I do to it.

J4CKO

41,287 posts

199 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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They need using, sympathetically but dont hold back.

My MIL had a BMW 320, 24 valve E36, felt flat as a fart when she had it, she gave it to my brother in law and he ragged the tits off it and I drove it after and it felt a different car, much more eager.

Our Fiesta Ecoboost fails emissions based on my wifes short journeys, batter the living daylights out of it for ten minutes and it passes.

Same for humans, need to get your heart rate up occasionally.

HustleRussell

24,602 posts

159 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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Fact

Ron99

1,985 posts

80 months

Friday 23rd August 2019
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I think it makes a difference to smoother running, better response and better mpg. Many people have used the Italian tune up to get through a previously failed MoT emissions test.

I wonder whether sometimes a car which doesn't make many long journeys spends most of its time with the alternator charging the battery and the drag of the alternator on the engine is noticeable on cars with smaller engines.
After a good blast the battery may be fully charged and the alternator disengages from the engine, making the engine feel smoother and more responsive.

Certainly in my Viva (1-litre, naturally aspirated) I can feel when the alternator is engaged - it feels rougher, more sluggish and slightly worse mpg.
By chance I have a 12v multisocket in the car for various gadgets and the socket has four LEDs which light up in sequence to show the approximate voltage of the electrical system so I have been able to repeatedly confirm that the sluggish episodes coincide with battery charging,


Edited by Ron99 on Friday 23 August 23:56

InitialDave

11,856 posts

118 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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I had the opportunity, many years ago, to compare two identical-engined Fiestas. One had been driven by me since new, and once properly warmed up, driven like an Italian teenager on his way to a hot date. The other driven by a mixture of stereotypical not-bothered-about-cars female staff.

The former was noticeably more free-revving and felt a little bit more pokey.

With the caveat of making sure it's warmed up correctly and not got other faults/objects of neglect that might do it a mischief, yes, I'm a firm believer in making use of whatever performance an engine has to offer being a broadly good thing to keep them sweet.

Only exception may be engines with direct injection, where I think for some designs there's simply nothing you can do, they're going to get bunged up regardless. No amount of Italian tuning will help there, but some Seafoam or simillar and then a damn good thrashing might get ya.

But even if it doesn't work, sod it, maximum brap! It (probably) won't hurt it, and you need to be using what you've got before you go buying more performance.

Apparently it's also very good for diesels, but I don't really give a st about diesels in road cars so ehhh.

rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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99/100 there is no such thing, but very rarely you will get an old car that genuinely has never been driven above low revs (lets say 3000 rpm) and if you give it a quick blast up the road you will see a load of unusual brown smoke at high revs as you blow all the cobwebs out - very very rare to get this (I get a lot of px from main dealers and when they have problems and we give them a good Italian tune but up it rarely ever works).

driver67

976 posts

164 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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I was under the impression that nowadays it was the 'normal' method to 'clear the dpf' on diesel cars ?

Seems to have worked on my GF's DS4, she was finding it stuttering like fuel starvation etc occasionly. Not happened since a high rev 20 minute stint up the A9.

Dougie.

donkmeister

7,999 posts

99 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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My OH bought an MX-5 SVR from the original owner when it was about 3years / 40k miles. It had never been driven hard in its life, and after owning it a few weeks she decided to stretch its legs.
After she pulled up there was so much smoke, or dust, or steam... the next day her dad (former mechanic from the days of carbs and chokes) suggested we fire it up again as it was probably just burning off accumulated crap. He was right, as it never did it again despite getting used enthusiastically for another 80k miles before selling on.

DoubleD

22,154 posts

107 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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rainmakerraw said:
I coach for RoSPA and the sheer number of Associates who don't exceed ~2k RPM, ever, is eye opening.
Associates? Is that what they make you call each other at rospa?!

DickyC

49,549 posts

197 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
quotequote all
rainmakerraw said:
I coach for RoSPA and the sheer number of Associates who don't exceed ~2k RPM, ever, is eye opening.
A few years ago I test drove a Boxster S my daughter was buying privately from a Lieutenant Commander RN. He said the car was his mid life crisis; he'd had it for a long time but now it had to go. With me driving and him in the passenger seat we went along the nearby A road to see how the car behaved in traffic and then came back along the motorway. The slip road on to the motorway was long and I gave it beans. And I couldn't help noticing the owner was smiling broadly. This isn't always the case with someone else's car. Interesting. Joined the motorway, made my way over to the third lane and settled down with the flow. "That was great," he said. "I've never driven it that fast."

Ron99

1,985 posts

80 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
quotequote all
InitialDave said:
I had the opportunity, many years ago, to compare two identical-engined Fiestas. One had been driven by me since new, and once properly warmed up, driven like an Italian teenager on his way to a hot date. The other driven by a mixture of stereotypical not-bothered-about-cars female staff.

The former was noticeably more free-revving and felt a little bit more pokey.
In the past my wife had a couple of cars from new which she drove gently and even on motorways she prefers to stay at 50-60mph in L1.
The cars used more than their fair share of oil.

Both cars happened to be used by me to make several very long journeys in quick succession, not particularly thrashed but including prolonged time at 70+ mph. The excessive oil consumption immediately stopped and never recurred.

I suspect the long, fast-cruising journeys 'run in' the engines which my wife's gentle pootling wasn't doing to any great extent.

Drive Blind

5,076 posts

176 months

Saturday 24th August 2019
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my dads ford diesels (pre dpf) would spend their time doddling about at 1400rpm everywhere. One year it failed at MOT time and the MOT guy was talking £££'s for possibly turbos, injectors, ecu's etc, to solve the problem.
A drive with about 6 pulls using all the revs sorted it out. After that my dad learned to give it a proper rev every now and again.

I also believe there's a benefit to giving the brakes a good work out too.