Question about Speed

Hey everyone,

I just bought an LS model, beautiful car and drove it on a 500mile trip. All is well, but when my dad asked me about how fast I drove it, I told him between 80-90MPH... he lectured me about how I'm 'destroying the car'.... I think he's right.... what is the ideal speed for maintaining the engine? should I drive back (same trip) 60MPH? it will take longer... but I plan on keeping my car for 10 years at least....

any comments?

thanks

well u are not helpin your motor any by runnin it at 80-90 mph. im not sayin u cant do it or shouldnt ever do it because hell its fun. but for a long trip like that (500 miles) u should not run the motor that high especially if u are still breaking in the motor. plus it ruins ur gas mileage. ive had my aveo around 110 and it was a blast but i didnt hold it there long. that was scary too cus these cars arent built for those speeds. the car got real shifty and every little bump that i hit would make the car bounce hard. since i added 17" rims and wider tires its a lil better at those speeds. but like i said these motors arent designed to maintain a speed of 80-110 for long periods of time.its just a 1.6 4 cyl. not a V-6 or V-8. plus the tires are not good for that. those smaller tires heat up fast and could fall apart on the highway causing an accident. and not to mention thats a lot of highway to cover and try not to get a ticket in. so in that aspect if i were u i would slow it down for those longer trips and im sure ur motor will be happier as well as ur wallet.

Hey everyone,

I just bought an LS model, beautiful car and drove it on a 500mile trip. All is well, but when my dad asked me about how fast I drove it, I told him between 80-90MPH... he lectured me about how I'm 'destroying the car'.... I think he's right.... what is the ideal speed for maintaining the engine? should I drive back (same trip) 60MPH? it will take longer... but I plan on keeping my car for 10 years at least....

any comments?

thanks

Welcome to your first post on AF
Actually I would be more worried about yourself and people riding with and other people on the road.
A lot of cars are not safe to drive up into the 90 and 100 mph
Tires that come on a new car to start with are not safe at high speed.
It is a lot safer for everyone to stay close to speed limit and road conditions.
Go with the trafic flow.
Most engines and cars are geared to and set up and will run a little over the speed limit without problems.
But now that does not mean 120-150 MPH
Breaking in a new engine it is better not to hold a steady speed for a long period of time. Let up a little at times.
MT

Back in the old days (pre 70s), new car dealers used to tell you to keep your car under 60 mph for the first 500-1000 miles so the engine could break in. After the first 1,000 miles you could start to stretch up to 70 or so and many said to keep the car under 80 until it was up around 3,000 miles. They don't tell us that anymore but I wonder if they should? I bought a new 06 LT in April and have pretty much kept it under 60 with just a few spots up to 70 for a short time passing. Most miles are in town because I have better cars for freeway driving. I pretty much have kept the car under 3,000 rpm and when the road is fairly empty, under 2,000 rpm. Of course there have been a time or two when I needed to scoot but I think I will be going over 1,000 miles some time this week and then maybe I'll go a bit faster. But then maybe not since I did get the car for mileage!!

As to the question about tearing up the engine doing 80-90? Probably not but you have probably lowered the life span overall.

a few weeks ago i broke my cars tranny by tryin to run it hard. i went to shift from 2nd to 3rd gear and broke a shifting fork in the process makin it impossible to shift gears and i was stuck in 4th gear. thats not good when ur in the city with lots of stoplights. that sucked. luckily i was still under warranty so i got it fixed for free but i learned my lesson. so really take our advice and take it easy on ur aveo leadfoot.

Good lesson there. Some seem to think any new car is built for maximum strain when in fact, some cars can put out more power than the transaxle, transmission and other things can handle. Cars aren't made like in the old days with Detroit Steel and you had to make a concentrated effort to break something. Today, cars are made as cheap as possible to maximize profits. Your car is probably engineered for "average" drivers and when you get a hot rodder, the driver exceeds the car's ability. There is another thread about a mod for the Aveo coming up but as I stated in that thread, I'd SERIOUSLY consider passing up mods on this car unless you change a lot of items first. I don't believe this car's construction can handle another 20 horsepower or more. Maybe 5 or 10 but I'd even question anything over 5 or any hard driving on a completely stock machine.

Perfect example was one night when I was watching "Pinks". If you don't know the show, two guys with fast cars line up and race for titles. It is run by an impartial organization to try to make things fair. This particular night, I believe the race was against an older Camaro or Firebird (80s?) and an early 2000s Honda. On the third race, the Honda broke the transaxle. The car just wasn't built for racing even though the guy had mods on it to make it faster. A Honda will take more abuse than a Daewoo (Aveo) so if the Honda broke after only 3 hard races, how many times will an Aveo take? Even with a non-experienced racer or street hot rodder?

PS. You were VERY lucky to have your part covered under the warranty. The warranty normally voids any repairs due to abuse or neglect. In your case, it would have been considered abuse.

yeh i was lucky. actually the dealership i took it too was very nice about it. i called em cus they were the closest and i said i broke it just shifting normally and they called out a tow truck for me and hauled it in, fixed it, checked everything over for me, and was happy to help everytime i called. they even checked the clutch for me to make sure it was ok and if it wasnt they would make GM pay for it but it was fine. but i was truly happy with the service i got there until i brought it home and found a huge scratch on my front bumper that wasnt there when i took it in. that made me so mad. i called them and they verified that it wasnt there when it came in and so they told me of a shop to take it to and they paid to get it fixed which was good but i was still pissed cus that should not happen. but whatever my car looks good now. just got a new Ractive racing filter for it so now my motor is happier. and all is good for the aveo.

mods dont hurt these cars that muchim running an after market clutch a cold air and my ecu is tuned, (for more power to match the programing of the chip) toyo tires and a stage 2 chip not transiter and i have had no problem and my cat back custom exhaust im sitting at around 190 hp and it runs just beautifulol and i abuse it on a daily basis..and the fact that there is no govern is just amazing and i have also lowered it 2 inches
now a i am having custom louvers mad to replace teh small useless windows jsut for the sport look..trying had to make a ugly car look good

You actually should take the revs up to the top once in a while during break in. It gives a more thorough break in than keeping it in one rpm range all the time. Letting it loose on occasion isn't going to harm anything if the thing is built right. If it's not, the breakin time is when you want to find out, while it's still under warranty. A shifting fork usually isn't worked that much harder if you're racing or plodding around town. It's not overly stressed by hard driving. It's definitely something the warranty should cover. If you keep twisting off cv's, then the dealer can tell you to get lost.

Usually what they say for new cars is that for the first 500 miles or so, you should in general go easy on it, but also not to keep the engine at one speed the whole time. On average, take it slow, but a few trips up the tachometer is recommended. If that 500 miles was the first 500 miles on the car, it wasn't a very good idea to travel the whole thing at 80-90 mph.

One thing you really want to watch are your temps. Thrashing you engine too hard or too long, especially during break in, can score your cylinder walls. Sure, let it rev out once in a while but taking it easy on the wee beast for the first five hun or so is sound advice.

Well, Aveo is just a small sedan/mini MPV, no one will suggest you to go above 70mph on it. For daily or long period of driving, try not to go above 60mph, that'll make the engine in a good condition for a long time. But if you need something to push your adrenaline, go for 110mph, but not more than five minutes. That's what I always do, you'll get the pleasure, but you won't get your engine wrecked.:naughty: