`red-lining

I did that exiting the freeway in my last Toyota. It sucked a valve into the combustion chamber and broke a piston rod destroying the engine. I gave it away to a needy person who installed a used engine and ended up with a nice car.

So you're suggesting I shouldn't do it?

Unless your freeway was going very steeply down hill, I would think you came close to the redline even less time than I have!!

This is a 2021 or 2022 Citroen C-3. A rental with only 9000 miles on it, so it must be new. I think I bought the insurance, but regardless, I don't want to hurt the car. mAYBE I shouldnt go lower than 3rd gear and rely on the brakes for anything more.

Rather a silly comment if you end up crashing because the brakes overheat and you can't stop.

over-reving on decel is considered worse than under load as there is less pressure on the pistons preventing the rods from "stretching" and hiting the head etc. Not a SIGNIFICANT difference.

Also - a lot easier to over-rev on decel (no over-rev fuel cut preventing the over-rev like there is in MOST late model vehicles (Basically impossible to "hurt" them by over-reving uunder power)

Smart drivers know when engine braking is needed and when not. Depends on conditions but it is not good practice to do all the time.

Exactly.

If that's happening you DESERVE to crash.

Only once -- the very first time I drove down a mountain road -- did my brakes get too hot to stop as quickly as I wanted. Lesson learned.

Micky isn't doing it all the time and it does no hard to do it all the time and does see less wear on the brakes.

No he was not when you change down before there will be any red lining.

But changing down so you don't redline doesnt.

That's wrong too. Doing it properly does produce less brake wear.

But perfectly possible to not over rev in that situation.

Which is presumably why micky changed down. All he needs to do is chang down earlier, before the steep drop, so it doesn't red line.

I've heard that disk brakes don't overheat, and I think this Citroen has

No, it was so that I'd use mostly the engine and use the brakes much less and have them in reserve if... if a child ran out in front of the car, for example, or a car pulled in front of me, or whatever.

I had used the brakes so little at that point there was chance of overheating even drum brakes.

That would have been next to impossible. Thhe hills show up quickly and unexpectedly.

More rpm = more wear. Can't change the laws of physics and friction.

But at the cost of engine wear. I don't know the $$ figure but there is one. Brakes are pretty cheap though.

Thats wrong.

Yes it does.

That's what I meant. And with a car you are not familiar with it makes sense to play safe.

No it isn't.

You ALWAYS come over the crest and can see what is in front of you.

Mindlessly simplistic. In the real world, engines last longer doing lots of long trips rather than short ones around town.

And the reality is that modern car engines hardly ever need replacing due to wear anymore.

Or those like you not understanding how engines work.

The reality is that hardly anyone needs a new engine due to wear and almost everyone needs new brake pads and sometimes discs too due to wear.

Unfortunately sometimes it is a giant truck passing another vehicle and headed straight for you in your lane.

--scott

Disk brakes overheat too - but they hold a bit better hot than drums.

When you drive like Micky. Which engine? They all have max HP rated at over 5200 RPM so I doubt you hurt it anyway.

I downshift judisciously with my automatic trans vehicles - never blown an engine (usually get rid of them around 240000km) and I fownshift the manual trans ranger all the time - 377000km on it now.

You just have to know what you are foing and not be a total idiot. If I miss a shift, even on the 96 it will never over-rev because the rev limiter cuts out the injectors at just over 4500 IIRC

The one likely to downshift and cause high rpms are more likely to wear an engine faster. There are still rebuilders out there as there is a need. Certainly not like years ago, but I bet more than you think.

Having done a couple of complete rebuilds, I have a pretty good idea how they work. My brother had 26 cars so we did a lot of work on them.