Warm Up Time / Oil Temp - When is it ok to cut loose?

[hooba]

sometimes in traffic my oil temp can go to about 97-98C... is that still ok? that's according to the MFD, not sure how accurate it is

That's fine and quite normal. Highest I've seen is 109C whilst driving a demo on a hot day, if you turn it off at that temp the pumps continue to run in order to cool things down.

[Maltopia]

Engine braking whilst warming up car

Did a search for topics and didn't find anything on this, apologies if I missed it.

I use the paddles a lot rather than the foot brake to slow down for lights/traffic/corners. I use the foot brake to come to a complete stop or where the engine braking is insufficient.

Is this something I should avoid whilst the engine is still warming up or is it irrelevant when I use the engine braking vs foot pedal in terms of wear and tear on the engine?

Oh, the engine braking usually just takes me up to 3-4.5K RPM, not redline heh.

Thanks for any advice.

M

[pologti18t]

As i was told at advanced driving courses...

Brakes are stopping and gears are for going.

The only time I use gears to control (keep a constant) speed is when travelling down an incline.

[Ryan_R]

What's wrong with the foot brake again? Besides eventual wear'n'tear you could save petrol by using the foot brake I guess, but then again you bought a GTI - so that might not matter to you

[bwen]

Brake pads are cheaper to replace than engine mount and clutches

[MACCAA]

As i was told at advanced driving courses...

Brakes are stopping and gears are for going.

The only time I use gears to control (keep a constant) speed is when travelling down an incline.

Correct.
Maybe back in the good old days of drum brakes you may have used the gears to ASSIST you in slowing,but not with modern brakes.Brakes are pretty much the cheapest component in the drive train.
Their job is to stop you.
Use them as such.
This is what we teach at all Advanced Driving days.

[Maltopia]

I thought I read in the manual to use the gears to slow down to avoid overheating your brakes - that is why I started doing it! I'll have another read of the manual to see if I can find it.

[MACCAA]

I thought I read in the manual to use the gears to slow down to avoid overheating your brakes - that is why I started doing it! I'll have another read of the manual to see if I can find it.

Anyone who overheats their brakes on the road would be a bit of a worry!

[Ryan_R]

It says to use 3rd gear while going down a long hill to help limit the speed of your car. This is so that you are not constantly on the brakes for a minute or more. In all other situations use the foot brake as the primary way to limit your speed or slow down.

[cameronp]

Generally I agree with (and have always been told) the "brakes to slow, gears for go" school of thought. When driving a manual I shift down through all the gears until (usually) coming to a stop in third, but that's more to make sure you're always in a gear where you can accelerate again if e.g. the lights ahead turn green.

Interesting that the DSG automatically applies engine braking when you're going down a hill though - and in fact it does so more aggressively than I would when driving a car with a manual transmission. There's a hill in West Perth where the DSG will often downshift to 2nd at 50 km/h, ~4000rpm!

[Ryan_R]

That's generally the reason why I switch to manual mode when going up and down hills with say a 60km/h speed limit or have a driver ahead who is obviously terrified of mountains roads. The DSG constantly changes up/down when it's not necessary otherwise and can even be a bit uncomfortable sometimes.

[Brian916]

Water and Oil temp

It was mentioned in a thread some time ago about the constant 90c on the coolant temperature guage.

On my trip to Sydney on the weekend, I switched the MFD over to the oil temp display. The coolant temp hit 90 very quickly, then the oil temp started its rise.

Funny thing is the coolant temp did not change from 90 at all. The oil temp was all over the shop in comparison.

On steep downhill (a couple), it would drop to 93c. Going up the other side, it topped out at 109c, a 15c difference.

On the flat, oil temp was 101 - 103c, which is more than acceptable as the car has only done 3200km. I expect it to be more stable when it's done 5000 -10,000 km

Interesting though that the coolant is only at 90 all the time.

[Corey_R]

It's been this way for many many years on most cars now. Most cars don't have an oil guage any more, and the water guage is set to reach 90 and stay there. The water does fluctuate too, but the guage just doesn't show it unless there's an actual problem.

I think it's so that car companies don't get 1000's of calls to their dealerships/support lines daily asking if it mattered that their water was at 95 or fluctuates constantly. It wouldn't help if they explained the guage in the manual, cause no one reads it. Thus, best to just "keep it simple" to suit the general population

[noone]

After a quick read I expected more comments about the climate of where these cars are made / driven.
Surely if there are VAG's scattered over some of the coolest climates and they are not suffering severe premature wear then we as people who live in areas where negative temps are rare or only go a few below Shouldn't have the same concerns.

I wonder how long it would take to warm up a 1.4 TSI with DSG in -10c temps on a long 50mph cruize.... Probably a damn long time as the DSG will pick a high gear and require almost no throttle.

I drive it softly for a few min, but i don't really push my car into high revs many days.

[Ideo]

If people are spending this much time watching something as pointless for day to day driving as oil temp, when do they watch the road?

Me, I do what I have done in cars before I had an oil temp gauge. I drive it gently-ish for the first 10 minutes (as in no red line, but if I need to get into fast flowing traffic I will), then when things are nicely warmed up I drive it.

Too much information is not always a good thing.