Car revs

kate1985

Hi folks,

I have little to no knowledge about cars, so you'll have to excuse my ignorance.
I drive a 2005 Yaris, and was wondering at what stage are the revs too high? What's the max the rev counter should be at?
I was driving at 120kph on a motorway and it was going up around the four mark. A friend told me it shouldn't be over 3? But she wouldn't have a huge knowledge of cars either.

Anyone's help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

craftypaddy

all cars are different depending on engine size and age of car have a quick look here...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=65670053
for reassurance contact your dealer, then check with a small independent mechanic, in case the dealer tells porkies which can happen

Gitb1

Your car has a built in rev limiter so you cant rev it so high as to damage it. Generally speaking when you get to 3k revs you should change up a gear but if your already in 5th theres not much you can do really.

Leonard Hofstadter

4000 rpm sounds about right, it's a small car with a very small engine, so it needs to have the nuts revved off it to progress at a decent speed.

Larger engined cars run at lower revs because they are more powerful, and becuase listening to an engine running at 4000 rpm constantly isn't particularly pleasant:)!

Ardennes1944

my old astra was nearly at 4k revs at 120kph too. if i had a 1.0/1.2 i certainly wouldnt drive at 120 for long, i cant understand people in yaris/corsa/puntos bombing down the outside lane at 120kph and over, your cars arent built for it!

TestTransmission

captainspeed wrote: »

Larger engined cars run at lower revs because they are more powerful, and becuase listening to an engine running at 4000 rpm constantly isn't particularly pleasant:)!

ahem

alias no.9

Unless your clutch is slipping, there is a linear relationship between your engine speed and road speed in a given gear.

If you're doing 4k RPM at 120km/h in 5th gear (sounds about right for a 1.0l)
- then at 3k RPM in 5th gear you should be doing 90km/h
- and at 2k RPM in 5th gear you should be doing 60km/h

If this is correct, then everything is ok. What your friend is telling you is a typical example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing.

langdang

alias no.9 wrote: »

What your friend is telling you is a typical example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing.

Worse, I think what her friend is telling her is commonly accepted "knowledge" in Ireland which leads to people in low powered cars not being able to gain speed quickly enough and therefore merging and overtaking at unsafe speeds!

Presuming it's the 1L, rev it away when you need to gain speed kate, but you might just have to slow to 100kph ish on the motorway if the noise or the MPG gets too much for you at 4000rpm.

lau1247

rev counter would have red marking (model/make dependent) around 5K-6K typically.. basically once you don't go past red line, then you're doing ok..

my old golf 1.4 was revving at 3.8K or so at 120kph (5th gear).. my audi 2.0 tdi rev at about 2K at 120kph (6th gear)..

kate1985

Thank you all for your replies. Really helpful and I appreciate them all.

I do have a red indicator on the rev counter and that's up at seven, so I think I'm ok.
It isn't really the noise of the car that bothers me. I was just a bit afraid, due to what my friend said, that there was a problem with my car and it might blow up(?!?!)
In fairness the car is less than 1 litre, so it's not exactly a speed machine.

langdang

kate1985 wrote: »

In fairness the car is less than 1 litre, so it's not exactly a speed machine.

All the more reason to rev it above 3k!

I drive my mums yaris regularly. what little torque there is keeps coming past 4k revs. especially in 3rd, 4th and 5th. Rev away, the engine can take it!

C4Kid

Rev away, the engine can take it!

I wish I could say the same for the 1.4 Golf ! Thats one car I am afraid to rev too much:D

CiniO

Unless you are on red field on your rev-meter, you are OK.
Revoultions on red field are not to be held by too long, meaning f.e. if ref field starts at 6k, there's nothing wrong with reving it up to 7.5k while accelerating, but it's definitely not OK to keep it going at 7k for 10 minutes.
With petrol engines, anything below 5k is usually safe to be kept at that rev.
I travelled 400km in Germany in about 2.5h keeping speed at about 180 - 200km/h and revs at between 5000rpm to 6000rpm on my Primera 1.8. Absolutely no problems with it.

Daegerty

Follow Borris' advice and change at 6k