Audi A4 B8 2015 S-line TDI 2.0 - short trips

alsiet2017

Hi All - i have the car listed in thread title. I dont do much driving these days, maybe 7 miles into work in the morning (the long route) and 3 mile trip home in evening. During each of these journeys the coolant reaches operating temp, but oil temp might only just about reaches 80 C in the morning before i turn it off, and 70 C in the evening going home.

I know that diesels should be driven a bit more than that. Am i asking for trouble with this manner of driving? Maybe twice a month i go on a longer trip, maybe 40 miles return and try to drive her hard enough during the longer trips.

Questions are:
1. should i try and do more frequent longer journeys to heat her up to the core and burn off any carbon / moisture in oil, or would this take years to manifest itself as an issue?

2. in the mornings when cold, i try to keep revs as high as possible to warm faster but not too high to damage engine... i aim for 2K revs steady down the motorway for 10 mins. what is the recommended maximum rev range i could reach while the engine is still warming up? just conscious of thrashing it.

3. any other tips on keeping my diesel running top notch?

FYI car has 38K miles on her and running sweet. Has the multitronic transmission also

John_Mc

alsiet2017 wrote: »

2. in the mornings when cold, i try to keep revs as high as possible to warm faster but not too high to damage engine... i aim for 2K revs steady down the motorway for 10 mins. what is the recommended maximum rev range i could reach while the engine is still warming up? just conscious of thrashing it.

I'm no mechanic but I'd say you should probably do the opposite until the engine has warmed up properly

biko

Let car warm up as normal with no special revving or such.
Go take it for a longer spin at weekends and you should be ok.

alsiet2017

oh i dont bring it up past 2K in the mornings when cold. thats the maximum i am willing to push her but i was wondering if i could go even higher - i read somewhere that 3K revs is OK but seems excessive to me

alsiet2017

tricky thing is, she wont get warm if i drive normally into work. as in its not fully warmed up unless i increase the revs ever so slightly. the CVT box in the car makes for very low, and efficient rev range so the car takes a while to warm , unless im in sport mode (but then too high revs for cold). kind of caught between rock and hard place

Tuco88

I would drive it as normal as intended. And just take it for a good spin every second weekend or so.

Car99

Id sell it and buy something fast and uneconomical. if i was only doing thst mileage . why have the headache of a diesel .

cnocbui

Sell it and buy something with a petrol engine or electric.

ZefUglyBoy

You shouldn't really own a diesel car. If thats really the only kind of milage you do i would recommend a fully electric car.

Tuco88

ZefUglyBoy wrote: »

You shouldn't really own a diesel car. If thats really the only kind of milage you do i would recommend a fully electric car.

He can own whatever he wants its his funding.

cnocbui

Tuco88 wrote: »

He can own whatever he wants its his funding.

Of course he can, but he asked for advice / comment. Diesel clearly isn't a good fit for his usage pattern.

alsiet2017

ZefUglyBoy wrote: »

You shouldn't really own a diesel car. If thats really the only kind of milage you do i would recommend a fully electric car.

understood. when i bought it last year i was doing a lot of work travel but not much anymore. i love the car so will keep it until they make diesel engines obsolete or electric cars have ironed out the kinks or petrol engines becomes really efficient. if i didnt love the car so much id sell her on but its a beaut

biko

Ok, if OP wants to sell then they will.
Let's focus on the three questions in the OP from here on.

nextcarC5

Yeah, take it out for a spin every now and again (2 weeks to be safer, once a month minimum) or so for a motorway spin, keep the RPM high - over 2000rpm for a solid 30min+ to clear the DPF