Rep Power: 204

So I about this car a couple months ago and from what I've understood from the PO is that it's been a city car most of it's life. All maintenance has been done by Honda and all the fluids are clean and clear. Even the oil is golden brown at 5000km and hasn't burned a drop in the past 2500km. It didn't have a tachometer in it when I bought it either so it probably hasn't been driven to redline very often.

Now it's a highway car average 40 min a day at 100km (55mph?). I've been driving it according to the manual specs for shifting since I've bought it. I've put a tach in it recently and now I know that Honda wants you to up shift at 3000 rpm and downshift at 2000 rpm. Once winter is over I'm planning on driving this car harder. Probably harder then it's ever been driven in it's life. So I've been wondering for awhile now if that's going to be sheer death for an engine that's never really been driven hard.

I'm not talking like stupid idiot hard but definitely higher up shift rpms.

 
Rep Power: 812

it really depends what the motor is like inside. city cars usually have alot of carbon deposits and driving hard can cause issues.

 
Rep Power: 353

generally, its ok as long as you keep it well maintained.

like changing to oil regularly, giving a few mins to warm up before u drive the crap out of it in the mornings...and/or giving it a good 30sec each time u turn on ur engine afterward to warm up the fluid working conditions....etc

 
Rep Power: 197

lol well i would say depends on how much you paid for the car and how long you want it to last. jk but honestly i dont see how it could hurt if you ran it a little harder.

 
Rep Power: 204

Check +

I've learned the lesson of regular maintenance from mistakes I've made with the truck.

I guess I'd like to know if there's anything that would help to put it into tip top shape before pushing it harder. There's at least a couple more months of winter here before the summer tires go on. So like would it help to run high octance or gas treatment or something like that to clean the carbon out? I'm planning on doing a valve adjustment when the weather nicer. Timing belt was just done.

I've rev'd it up to 3500rpm a couple times and it just doesn't feel like it wants to reach redline. I don't know if it's the catalytic converter or just me but I don't want to damage it just 'cause.

 
Rep Power: 217

This. I babied my old car and now that the lady has it, she never lets it warm up, drives it like she stole it, and somehow it's still running. Not well, but still running. I give my Vic an Italian tune up now and then. To be honest though, this car seems like it wants to be driven hard all the time.

 
Rep Power: 367

don't know how much is true, but there is the old adage that an babied engine will not rev as happy as one that have been abused? (no xxx meaning intended...)

 
Rep Power: 0

A good indicator of the healthiness of your motor will be the condition of the valvetrain when you do the valve adjustment, weird colors like blue or green mean its not getting cool enough and theres probably an oil restriction, obviously lots of sludge would mean the oil needs to be changed more often, but if it looks like a nice golden brown, not too dark, then its fine, run a tank of premium to clean out some carbon, preferably shell, just one tank is good. Run a treatment of seafoam afterward, just not the oil part. Thats what i would do, and what i did when i first got my civic, after changing all the fluids ofcourse. When i pulled the head after 155k miles, 35 of which was me driving, there was just a nice little coating of carbon in there and on the intake valves, nothing worth shaking a stick at for 155k miles.

 
Rep Power: 204

Thanks 02_d17a1_dx

That's an awesome answer. I will take that advice.

Cheers

 
Rep Power: 367

take a look also in the gearbox's egr valve and others carbon deposit threads

 
Rep Power: 353

omg.

should i rip at him or be nice???????

to the OP: do u self a favor and dont listen to the advise i bolded in red.

 
Rep Power: 812

well technically premium is refined more and contains additional additives i guess you can call "cleaners" in order to keep the fuel stable. as far as drastic engine cleaning, i dont think that was its purpose. something like auto-rx.com works much better for a one time engine cleaning fluid. well worth the $30.

 
Rep Power: 353

ill take LubeControl's FP60 thank you very much!

 
Rep Power: 0

True, I guess it just depends on how bad your fuel system is, because one tank of premium cleared the tiny bit of knock I had.

 
Rep Power: 204

Soooo... basically you endorse what was said there with the exception the tank of premium gasoline?

I just had a look at auto-rx and yeah, I'd be inclined to do that or the FP 60

@ gearbox - any personal experience with it?

My car has exactly 100k miles on it right now and like I said everything looks pretty tight on it. I'm a big believer in preventative maintenance though.

 
Rep Power: 0

I understand it may seem ridiculous, but premium does have better/more detergents. It really depends on the quality of gas you normally get, if you always get it at the same place and you have a lot of carbon, its probably not good gas.

Ive tried looking up online at some point in the past about who sells good gas and who doesnt, but its pretty hard to tell sometimes since many stations use the same refineries.

Obviously a good fuel system cleaner would work, but for me, all i needed was a tank of a good premium.

Just my .02, no need to hate

 
Rep Power: 812

auto-rx is really worth it if the motor is messed up inside. ive never had to use it on the civic thankfully, but i used it on our old accord and it worked miracles. tons more power, better mileage, fixed a stall issue, the rod knock isnt as noticable, and the oil burning has nearly stopped.

on my civic ive been using lc20 and fp60 for 5yrs now and the engine is like new inside. best investment ive made and the products more than pay for themselves.

autorx is a one time use engine cleaner, after that you can use the lubecontrol stuff regularly to keep the engine and fuel system at its best.