Benefits of an 'italian tune up'

[FoolOnTheHill]

Modern or classic, it's a good idea to give the exhaust a good clear out for a start.

[Los Palmas 7]

shirt said:

it can help if you have an older petrol car that is about to be emissions tested for the MOT.

My MOT monkey always takes mine for a "warm up" before it gets tested.

[Rude-boy]

Not a clue on the science or anything but can only agree with the comments of others. A damn good clean out always seems to help.

FWIW my Box' hates being pottered about it, yep go for a spirited drive and it's as smooth as silk.

[unpc]

I have the same thing with the brakes on my 147GTA. Weeks of commuting seems to glaze over the brake pads and when you need them there's nothing there. A good pasting sorts them out straight away.

[asbo]

Six Fiend said:

My E34 540 owner's manual says it should be allowed to rev higher in the range to clean it through if it's been used at low revs for a fair while.

Indeed, the E34 M5 Owner's Manaul used to specify at least one trip to the red line every journey. Always made me laugh that.

[Ry_B]

daz05 said:

asbo said:

Ry_B said:

If I hover about in traffic for a week or two I don't notice my car being sluggish. If I then take it all the way to 10k repeatedly on a hoon I will notice that it seems to be more responsive when driving at slow speeds and more eager to rev.

This is with both my old car (MR2) and my current car RX8

Could be an imagination thing, but I like to do it if you don't get out of traffic much.

Oh and it's great stress relief too

This is apparrently true of the RX8.

It doesn't like traffic and or low revs.

Something to do with carbon build up I believe.

Asbo is correct, there are a few reasons for this on the Rx8. Too many low revs in the causes excess carbon build up, revving it once a day will stop this. Not sure why maybe something to do with the natural oil consumption.

Its also to do with the throttle response its adaptive to driving style. I swear my Rx8 gained about 15bhp after my trip to the ring last year and Autobahn antics!!

The third is that the 3rd engine port in the Rx only gets used at high revs so it can get sticky if you've been in traffic for too long, very common for the USDM versions to suffer from this driving on Freeways at 55.

Yeh i know about the 3rd port being blocked. It only happens on the 231s (the 192s don't have the third port) and it only happens after many, many miles of not going above 6k. 50-100 miles round town will not cause the third port to block up.

[Matt UK]

asbo said:

Six Fiend said:

My E34 540 owner's manual says it should be allowed to rev higher in the range to clean it through if it's been used at low revs for a fair while.

Indeed, the E34 M5 Owner's Manaul used to specify at least one trip to the red line every journey. Always made me laugh that.

I like that. I've not seen it in the e39 handbook. But I think I'll dig it out for a look..

[bazking69]

Getting everything properly hot once in a while clears deposits on things like sensors, the cat, oil ways etc. We get old biddies in who pootle around at under 2000rpm all year then fail the emissions come MOT time. A good hard blast for 5 minutes usually sorts it.

[Crook]

Matt UK said:

No need for the MX5 though - since I bought it the poor little blighter probably thinks it's been exported to Milan

[HereBeMonsters]

Mate of mine killed 4 cars (yes, four) because he never, ever, revved above 3000 rpm. His last Primera was on the verge of death, so he let me drive it to see what was up, I took it past 5k rpm and he literally shouted at me for "ruining" the engine. To be fair a massive cloud of black smoke did come out of the back, but I just kept giving it the beans.
Felt far better after that, and got another 6 months of motoring out of it before he chopped it in for a (on my advice) diesel. Now he still revs to 3k rpm, but with a redline of about 4500 it's alright...