Is Redlining Your Engine Actually Good For It?

Let’s be honest. When we get our hands on something that has a little bit of performance heritage underneath that hood, sometimes, it can be hard to stay out of the throttle. Most of the time, you might think that this extra abuse is throwing some wear and tear at your engine that could be avoided if you would just drive easily, however, there is a school of thought out there somewhere that thinks that maybe, just maybe, driving your car hard could actually be something that is beneficial to you. It’s an obscure concept, right?

The concept has a little bit of a nickname that you might know as the “Italian tuneup” and basically, the premise goes as follows. The people who believe in this school of thought think that, by driving your car hard, all of those extra carbon deposits that are robbing horsepower, at least if you ask your favorite synthetic oil commercial, can be burnt off by simply driving aggressively. It seems like a crazy concept but then again, we have seen crazier things come to life and work right in front of our eyes… Maybe by that logic, it’s not that nutty at all.

If you follow along with the video below, our host over at Engineering Explained takes the time out of his day to explain to us what parts of such a thought are reasonable and what parts might be a complete myth. We would think that more of the “facts” behind this one are just people having fun and making something up without very much knowledge but who knows? Perhaps there’s something to this wacky theory, after all! If it is true, you now have a good excuse to beat on your ride a little bit more without feeling so bad at the end of the day.