Am I damaging my car?

[iva cosworth]

johnmayer said:

commute at 90 mph

I predict this won't go well.

[Mastodon2]

I don't know about the car, but I think you might wear your licence out quickly doing 20,000 miles at 90mph, you are likely to hit more than a few speed traps.

Unless you commute on the Autobahn of course.

[Changedmyname]

Ah! that was the A3 that came ripping past me doing 90 with black smoke belching out the exhaust.

[DanDC5]

Motorway miles are generally less wearing on the car as a whole than if you were doing 20k miles on b-roads and in traffic. Obviously doing more miles will always lead to more wear no matter where you drive but in comparision the driving you're doing shouldn't be too bad.

Oh and change the speed to 70mph. You'll get more useful answers

[mrmr96]

Well, it's not the ideal car for that kind of driving. Small engined petrol cars are generally better round town and larger engined diesel cars are generally better for leggy cruising. Whether it's causing damage, maybe, but not that I'd be worried about. However I would consider changing to a 2.0 (or larger) diesel engine if I was in your position.

[exigepete]

Engines work better on high load, will probably last longer than stop start short commutes!

[DavidHM]

I think you should try changing up into fifth if it's pulling 4k RPM at 70.

[SD1992]

DavidHM said:

I think you should try changing up into fifth if it's pulling 4k RPM at 70.

I think OP meant it was doing 4000 at 90

[mrmr96]

DavidHM said:

I think you should try changing up into fifth if it's pulling 4k RPM at 70.

The OP had a different speed in previous. Lets just say that he's sat at 4k in top.

[Jw Vw]

DanDC5 said:

Motorway miles are generally less wearing on the car as a whole than if you were doing 20k miles on b-roads and in traffic.

As above^

[timbob]

For reference, I bought a T plate 1.4 Civic back in 2007. It was 8 years old and had barely 29,000 miles on it. I was worried about doing lots of miles on it, but it's just tanked over 170,000 miles (roughly 30,000 per year), a large portion of which has been motorway miles.

The engine's starting to use a little oil now (and leak a bit more through the rocker cover gasket) but it's never failed to start first time, and is still going strong.

Don't worry about the A3. But don't do that many miles at 90mph - the law of averages is against you.