New Car and New to Manuals

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Squint
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

Post by Squint »

Shadow wrote:I'd love to see a video of an '08 Rabbit with its engine revving to 6,000 rpm all by itself. Surely there would be lots of videos all over the Internet if other Rabbit owners experienced that.
Along those same lines, did anyone ever see a video of a Toyota having "sudden unintended acceleration?" I'd be curious if they did...
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

Post by theholycow »

Shadow wrote:If the engine in your Rabbit revved to "6000 RPM for 30 seconds or more" then there was something very wrong. That isn't normally operation/behavior under any circumstances. You really should have had the VW dealership fix that problem. And please don't tell me that you brought it back to the dealer and they said it was normal. :lol:

I'd love to see a video of an '08 Rabbit with its engine revving to 6,000 rpm all by itself. Surely there would be lots of videos all over the Internet if other Rabbit owners experienced that.
I don't have the car anymore. I did bring it in for service once but I didn't mention rev hang.

However, that's a good point. Shutout89, before you accept it as normal, you should bring it to the dealer and ask them to look at it. They'll probably tell you it's normal but at least you'll have it on record.

Anyway, here's why most people wouldn't get 30 seconds of 6000rpm rev hang: You have to be in neutral or declutched for it to happen. Once you put it in gear the engine isn't powerful enough to maintain that RPM. You get a shift shock and the engine is slowed down by the gear. Most people are scared of neutral coasting, and even those who aren't don't practice it regularly. So, they get a couple seconds of rev hang, smooth their shift with the clutch, and it doesn't seem very weird to them.

The 6000rpm extreme example I used happened when I zoomed up to redline for a difficult pass, and then put it in neutral to let it coast down to a more reasonable speed. (Side note: I hovered my right foot over the brake in case I needed to slow more urgently.) Half a mile later it was still at redline. Despite my experience with rev hang at the low RPM more common to my driving I was quite surprised. It was pointless to use neutral in that case, I might as well have stuck it in 5th to break the rev hang.

Edit: It could have been a malfunction with that car, however the symptoms matched those of other Rabbit drivers and it was merely the severity that seemed worse.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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theholycow wrote:
Shadow wrote:If the engine in your Rabbit revved to "6000 RPM for 30 seconds or more" then there was something very wrong. That isn't normally operation/behavior under any circumstances. You really should have had the VW dealership fix that problem. And please don't tell me that you brought it back to the dealer and they said it was normal. :lol:

I'd love to see a video of an '08 Rabbit with its engine revving to 6,000 rpm all by itself. Surely there would be lots of videos all over the Internet if other Rabbit owners experienced that.
I don't have the car anymore. I did bring it in for service once but I didn't mention rev hang.

However, that's a good point. Shutout89, before you accept it as normal, you should bring it to the dealer and ask them to look at it. They'll probably tell you it's normal but at least you'll have it on record.

Anyway, here's why most people wouldn't get 30 seconds of 6000rpm rev hang: You have to be in neutral or declutched for it to happen. Once you put it in gear the engine isn't powerful enough to maintain that RPM. You get a shift shock and the engine is slowed down by the gear. Most people are scared of neutral coasting, and even those who aren't don't practice it regularly. So, they get a couple seconds of rev hang, smooth their shift with the clutch, and it doesn't seem very weird to them.

The 6000rpm extreme example I used happened when I zoomed up to redline for a difficult pass, and then put it in neutral to let it coast down to a more reasonable speed. (Side note: I hovered my right foot over the brake in case I needed to slow more urgently.) Half a mile later it was still at redline. Despite my experience with rev hang at the low RPM more common to my driving I was quite surprised. It was pointless to use neutral in that case, I might as well have stuck it in 5th to break the rev hang.

Edit: It could have been a malfunction with that car, however the symptoms matched those of other Rabbit drivers and it was merely the severity that seemed worse.
Okay, as silly as that whole story sounds, I'm not going to debate with you because it isn't relevant to the OP's situation. All I'm going to say is that backing out of his driveway after a cold start (or any start, for that matter) and watching the tach go to 2,500 rpm is not normal operation for any car, drive-by-wire or not. From my experience, most cars will cold idle (as in choke) at no more than 1,500 rpm. I owned a car that would actually approach 2,000 rpm ona cold start, but only for a second or two before it settled down to more reasonable rpm.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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Squint wrote:
Shadow wrote:I'd love to see a video of an '08 Rabbit with its engine revving to 6,000 rpm all by itself. Surely there would be lots of videos all over the Internet if other Rabbit owners experienced that.
Along those same lines, did anyone ever see a video of a Toyota having "sudden unintended acceleration?" I'd be curious if they did...
I remember seeing a video that a Prius owner made to show everyone how many different ways it would be possible to stop a runaway Prius. It was pretty funny... but no, I've never seen a single video showing unintended acceleration. That doesn't really surprise me since unintended acceleration is just a myth. It has been proven (on several occasions) that a car cannot overpower it's brakes.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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If it could, that'd be some poor brake design...
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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^ but a driver could try to stop the vehicle by lightly dragging the brakes over a long period of time and overheat them, glaze the pads, etc. and then the engine could overpower the brakes. The situation of a stuck throttle can be thought of as analogous to managing your speed on a long downhill run. A certain amount of skill is required to manage the situation. I doubt it's learned, or maybe not even taught, in every driver's education program. Here in the flatlands, I can't recall being taught exactly how to manage downhill runs, because there aren't any significant hills around to practice on. If it was in the bookwork or the classroom lecture, I don't remember that, but Shirley not in the roadwork.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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Shadow wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote:Lotsa strange stuff going on after a cold start, trying to get the exhaust Cadillac converter up to temperature sooner, even if it means burning more gas to get there. I could see the revs hanging at or shooting up to 2500 erpums after backing out of the driveway and suddenly pushing in the clutch. Fuggetaboutit!
You can see? Or you have seen?

Like I said, I've never seen that happen on any car unless something is malfunctioning. Also notice that the OP says this is happening after he reverses out of his driveway and then shifts out of reverse. If you want to attribute the high rpm to a cold start, it seems beyond strange that it wouldn't happen until after he reverses out of his driveway. Why wouldn't it happen at idle immediately after start-up? Or when he steps on the clutch to put the car into reverse? Doesn't make sense....
I've HAVE seen my revs shoot up when I suddenly "unloaded' the engine soon after a cold start. Throttle transitions are hell on emissions and combustion isn't all that stable after a cold start, so letting the rpm climb could be the lesser of the 17 weevils.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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Rope-Pusher wrote:^ but a driver could try to stop the vehicle by lightly dragging the brakes over a long period of time and overheat them, glaze the pads, etc. and then the engine could overpower the brakes. The situation of a stuck throttle can be thought of as analogous to managing your speed on a long downhill run. A certain amount of skill is required to manage the situation. I doubt it's learned, or maybe not even taught, in every driver's education program. Here in the flatlands, I can't recall being taught exactly how to manage downhill runs, because there aren't any significant hills around to practice on. If it was in the bookwork or the classroom lecture, I don't remember that, but Shirley not in the roadwork.
True, but then again how many people would try to stop a vehicle that is experiencing "unintended accleration" by lightly dragging the brakes over a long period of time? Come on now....you know that someone who feels he/she isn't in control of the accelerator pedal is going to mash the brake pedal as hard as possible. Besides, putting the trans in neutral kills the acceleration and makes the life easier for the brakes. Of course we all know this because we're manual transmission drivers. :P
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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Shadow wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote:^ but a driver could try to stop the vehicle by lightly dragging the brakes over a long period of time and overheat them, glaze the pads, etc. and then the engine could overpower the brakes. The situation of a stuck throttle can be thought of as analogous to managing your speed on a long downhill run. A certain amount of skill is required to manage the situation. I doubt it's learned, or maybe not even taught, in every driver's education program. Here in the flatlands, I can't recall being taught exactly how to manage downhill runs, because there aren't any significant hills around to practice on. If it was in the bookwork or the classroom lecture, I don't remember that, but Shirley not in the roadwork.
True, but then again how many people would try to stop a vehicle that is experiencing "unintended accleration" by lightly dragging the brakes over a long period of time? Come on now....you know that someone who feels he/she isn't in control of the accelerator pedal is going to mash the brake pedal as hard as possible. Besides, putting the trans in neutral kills the acceleration and makes the life easier for the brakes. Of course we all know this because we're manual transmission drivers. :P
No, I don't know that at all. The general pubic is fairly ignorant when it comes to operating their cars. Go look at some of the accounts of the Toyota unintended acceleration events. They dragged their brakes lightly until they were useless.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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Rope-Pusher wrote: No, I don't know that at all. The general pubic is fairly ignorant when it comes to operating their cars. Go look at some of the accounts of the Toyota unintended acceleration events. They dragged their brakes lightly until they were useless.
Okay, sure. Common sense (and general human behavior) would tell most people to press down hard on the brake pedal in a panic situation. Of course there are always idiots who will not react the way most of us would react, but they are the exception, not the norm. If the general public was as ignorant as you're implying, then we'd have absolute chaos on the streets every day. There would be body shops on every street corner. :roll: :lol:
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

Post by Rope-Pusher »

Shadow wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote: No, I don't know that at all. The general pubic is fairly ignorant when it comes to operating their cars. Go look at some of the accounts of the Toyota unintended acceleration events. They dragged their brakes lightly until they were useless.
Okay, sure. Common sense (and general human behavior) would tell most people to press down hard on the brake pedal in a panic situation. Of course there are always idiots who will not react the way most of us would react, but they are the exception, not the norm. If the general public was as ignorant as you're implying, then we'd have absolute chaos on the streets every day. There would be body shops on every street corner. :roll: :lol:
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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LOL...that's a lot of body shops. Not exactly every corner, but still a lot! If your town has more body shops than pizza shops, that's just can't be a good place to drive.
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Re: New Car and New to Manuals

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I drove through a small town in northern WV or south eastern Ohio that literally had more used car dealerships and auto parts places than the other businesses combined. My wife and I both noticed and were like, do they just keep rotating their cars around through the dealerships?
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