Is revving a car engine bad for it?

Revving a Car Engine

Yes, revving the engine causes a few things to happen.

If it's a cold engine, you can cause friction wear on the cylinder walls, piston rings, and pistons.

It can cause excess gas to go into the exhaust and ignite in your catalitic converter. Gas ignition in your exhaust melts the ceramic emission filter, which then makes the car run like having potatoes in the tailpipe.

Believe it or not, even though the car isn't in gear, the gears still will turn, so if you rev it up, it'll cause gears to wear down.

There are possibly more things happening, but I don't know 'em.

I went through 3 cats in 4 months because of too much gas in the exhaust.

Here is more input from others:

• No its not. just don't overrev it or redline it.

• Yes it is bad for the engine. Think of it this way, if you rub your hands together hard and fast when they are dry, they get hot quick because of the friction created. When an engine is reved cold, especially after sitting for a period of time, your engine is doing the same thing, oil has drained from some components and hi revs when cold can cause friction wear and damage. When hot, reving the engine when not in gear can also cause vibration wear and damage. Car engines were designed to be reved under load( in gear, driving). When it is freewheeling( in nuetral\park) the engine can speed up too quickly, because it does not have the mass to balance and push against, causing it to vibrate violently and at the extreme break.

• I'm not sure why you'd want to rev the engine, but if you're going to do it, just don't do it when the engine is cold and don't rev it to redline and especially don't hold it revving for an extended period of time. If you're talking about a racing scenario, a few "blips" of the throttle prior to punching it won't hurt anything. I forgot to add -> Don't rev your engine up and then shut the ignition off.

First answer by ID1090907127. Last edit by Ryno94. Contributor trust: 0 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 176 [recommend question]