5 things you should avoid with a brand new car

A brand new car is a big investment and the pride and joy of an owner. The reality however is that the car is still a mechanical tool that will wear and tear after a while. The car with its daily use and abuse will become less efficient over a long period. Some problems may surface sooner than you think. A lot of these problems can be postponed and avoided if you treat the car in a certain manner when it’s brand new.

In addition to these tips below, do refer to your owner’s manual and the proper break-in period for the car and its servicing schedule. Also during an emergency while driving, one must not adhere to these tips and do the needful to be safe. Personal safety is more necessary than anything else.

Don’t Floor the Accelerator

The reason for this is that the pistons in your brand new engine have some amount of spring tension in them and the combustion gases produced exert force on the pistons cylinder wall to make it move more freely. The gas pressure required for this is very low. The more power and fuel applied makes more pressure and the cylinder walls of the pistons will wear out and not evenly. This is why manufactures have run in periods for their cars where for e.g. – the car should not exceed 4000rpm at any given time except for an emergency. This ‘run in’ period will make sure all the imperfections of the cylinder wall are smoothed over and there are no hotspots on the wall that will cause a problem in the future

Don’t Shift At Redline

There are some people who will say that their car has a very tall 3^rd gear and they like to use it completely till the point the rpm allows. Yes, that is a good thing for acceleration. But in a brand new car where the engine is working out imperfections and the gearbox and clutch are being worked in, that is wrong. The car will be more economical to run and the transmission will have less load on it f quick upshifts will be done. The rpm on cars also varies. The petrol engine on most cars has a high rpm available. The rpm available on a diesel engine is lower. Also in cars there is a rev limiter which does not allow the car to exceed the rev range and in automatic and new cars with clever ECUs the car changes gears n=more quickly to be in the meat of the power band in the rev range and not be at high rpm wasting fuel.

Don’t Use Cruise Control

Cruise control is good and a feature that is great for long distance drive to ease fatigue. But in a new vehicle, the car should be treated with different loads of speed. Especially in manual cars that cannot shift gears for themselves, will hold the engine and the rpms to a certain speed which will put a lot of load on the car. Let the engine exercise with different loads of power and performance. The clutch and engine need to get used to a different varying condition and that is why one should avoid a long distance road trip on a brand new car which will involve the car sitting at one constant speed and rpm.

Avoid Short Distance Drives

I know what you are thinking, don’t do a road trip but also don’t drive for a small distance, where is the logic? When we say not to drive short distances. We mean to say that the engine in a new car needs to operated enough on any outing that everything can come up to operating temperature. Engine wear at a constant temperature is best for the engine to experience higher and varying loads in the future.

Avoid Towing

Your can do it, doesn’t mean it should do it. Any car should be allowed to reach its break-in period where everything has been starched to its maximum and the capacity of the car to lug more weight than its own is alright. Till the break-in period, the cars suspension, wheels, engine and other mechanical bits will be exercised and ready to haul more than its own and its occupants weight.