Performance Vs age of car question.

[Andrew]

I have heard that cars start to open up or loosen up as they get on in miles and perform better, is this true?

And what do they mean by loosening up? Is something physically happening to the engine?

 

I'm not talking about cars that have done 200k miles but cars on the 60-80k mark.

[Alex]

I remember Clarkson comparing 2 Golf Gti's once, one with a new engine and one with 90,000 on the clock. The 90,000 miler thrashed the new one.....

 

As for the 2JZ getting better with age - not in my experience - well that may be unfair...my 100,000 mile car flies but it breaks bits too...

 

I think the lesser of two evils is definately getting a lower mileage car!

[Terminator]

I recall reading somewhere, can't remember where, that 70000 was the optimum for an engine. I dont know if that applies to a quality engine like the MKIV

[randy]

Also depends on "how it has been used" as it is driver dependant they could have mis-used or thrashed their cars bad and by 70,000 the engine could be half dead!

[Digsy]

Yes, engines do loosen up with age. I remember the Clarkson / Golf GTi thing too - quite a demonstration. Its because the parts wear and the friction reduces because of increased clearances.

 

The flipside of this is lower oil pressure, more noise, piston slap, blowby and other problems that I can't be bothered to think of at 10:39 on a Saturday morning! So the performance increase over age thing can't go on for ever...

 

I remember in my apprentice days doing a tolerance survey on a well-known engine so that the noise test ones were built tight as a drum but with reduced power, and the power certification ones were built loose and noisy.