What RPM range do you drive???
 

I thought this might be an interesting topic. When the weather permits, I drive my Boxster to work. This commute consists mostly with 12 miles of a twisty two lane country highway averaging 45-60mph. This puts my car at the 2500 rpm range the majority of the time. When everyday driving, I generally shift at around 3000 rpm. If I'm out having a little fun, I like to shift between 4000-5000 rpm. I rarely rev past 5000.

I'm just curious, what are your driving habits? What rpm range do you normally drive?

Generally 3K-5K around town with a daily surge up to redline - I am addicted to that engine!

DD, generally 3000 - 3500

I'm fairly conscious of the poor loading of the IMSB at low rpm's, so I tend to try to keep to at least 3k. Up to 6k regularly. Love that sound!!!

I understand what you are saying but I worry that if you drive in such a high rpm range you may be saving the IMSB but putting stress on other just as critical engine parts. I would love to know the answer to this quandary!

:cheers:

I'm in the 3000 - 3500 area as well

I'd like to know this too. :confused:

Revs
 

I tend to go into high rpm when I can. My trip to my Business is around 10miles on some good Boxster roads, I go up to 7000 often. The car is a 2002 Boxter S with 86,000 miles on the clock , not had the IMS done yet.

My shifting habits in my 2000 S with recent improved IMS are just like the first poster,Meat head.

It's interesting to note that the Porsche graph in my owners manual and the sales brochure say that the 2000 S with the 3.2 motor produces 85% of its torque @ 2000 RPM.

That being said,it is such an effortless cruiser that I have to remind myself to keep the revs up!

you really aren't stressing the engine unless you are driving the car 10/10's consistently, like on long track stints for instance.
And its not just the IMSB you are hurting by driving below 3K RPM. Actually for 2.5's like yours, D-chunk failures are suspected to be caused by drivers who treat the engines too gingerly or post low mileage. ditto for the 3.4 Carreras. I get the impression generally that if the engine is going to fail, it's NOT because you're driving it in the 3-5K range consistently. More like design flawes that surface with improper attention to cooling --original water pumps in for too long, radiators, bad hoses,etc... and using crap oils for intervals that were too long.

I recall a post by flat six where they indicated that on their test engines they intentionally try to break the engines by subjecting them to all manner of extremes and even then inducing failure is no easy task. Makes me wonder if this included running the engines up and down below the 3K RPM for long periods.

I find myself cruising in the 3,000 rpm range with no complaints!

After fully warmed up, my car see all the gears and all the rev ranges. Been this way for over 55,000 miles and 8 driving seasons now. Rarely take to redline, but with in 500-1,000 RPM of that all-day-long.

Highway cruising......6th gear.....65-70 MPH.

Me too, but I bought the car to drive it. I'm no expert but I think its fair to say that we all live with the reality that this engine has weaknesses. Drive it as it pleases you.;)

Per forum advice I try to keep it above 3000 rpm as much as possible. Regular trips to at least 5k are unavoidable as I have a right-foot-left-ear controlled dopamine trigger system in my brain.:D

it's my daily drive, 7 miles one way to work.
let the engine idle till the cold start 1000 rpm drops to 700.
1 mile to fwy, below 3K, mostly coasting downhill.
freeway for 5 miles, 3000 or more, keep mostly in 4th (5spd, 2.7)
have hit the rev limiter from time to time. mostly up pass 6000 when getting on the freeway. ( little bit more aware of engine rev but not really.)
once off the freeway, I do somewhat of an active driving.. mostly 3-5K range.
have 135K miles. I do change oil every 5K miles

I drive to work often, highway @75 MPH=3000 RPM. On the back roads it varies from 3-4000 while warming up, to 5 or 6. I take it to 7000 a few times pretty much every drive. I refuse to drive a car based on fear, or trying to forestall engine failure. I bought it for fun, and that's the way I drive it!

BTW, if you never go above 5000, you're missing the best part!

Never under 8,500 rpm.

I was curious about this topic as well. For me, on local streets, I try to keep the RPM between 3k and 4k because of the IMSB. On the freeway, I'm usually in 5th gear cruising at 60-75 mph, which results in 2500 to 3000 RPM. I feel 3000-ish is a good balance between fuel efficiency, torque, etc., but I'm really annoyed by the vibration at 3200 RPM.

3K and above.

I used to be very mindful of the fuel economy for a brief period of time where I was having to make 100 mile round trips every few days. I analyzed 3K and above driving and 2500 -3000 RPM driving.
The final analysis was that it saved me little in the bigger picture of engine care/longevity.
Porsches have a near fail safe way of guaranteeing that what you think you're saving here ends up costing you more elsewhere. I concluded its best to save money elsewhere in my finances.

Funny, I was just thinking of searching for a thread like this.

I drive most of the time in the 3k to 4k range with stints of 5k-6k when getting on a freeway or passing a few slo-pokes.

I like 3rd gear at 4k when in town or city roads as it is so silky smooth and power is instantly on tap.

I always feel as if the rest of the world is in slow motion when I drive my Boxster.

The car was made to run near red line in high gear on the Autobahn for hours at a time.

2500 until it's warmed up, then 3000-4000.

I agree with the earlier post that he car cruises so smoothly that I sometimes forget to keep the RPMs up.

Once it's warmed up, minimum is 3k.

Redline is no worry.

After 60+ track days, where every shift is made at or near redline, my engine must have nearly 10,000 runs up to redline: upshift 4 times a lap x 10 laps a session x 4 sessions a day x 60 days = ~9,600 shifts at redline. I try not to bounce the RPM's off the rev limiter but occasionally do so. 126,000 miles and the engine runs perfect.

My advice: Drive it like you stole it.

This is my daily range as well.

Every light where i'm first in line I do max performance launch up to the speed limit+5mph as if racing with hi rev shifts.

Its so much fun and then the followers catch up and zoom by 30 over the limit and find the police For me.

I think i have 40 miles to work, i live in sweden but work i denmark so im going over the bridge that we have here.
At the toll booth one could go in 30 miles/h in second gear then i floor it.
Going from forth to fifth i usually doing 120 m/h so im nearly on the red line.

In the tunnel that comes after the bridge theres 55 in speed limit, perfect for downshift to third gear - What a noise!


I do that nearly everyday but otherwise i shift between 2000-3000 rpm.
But i dont hesitate to rev ;)
Cruising speed i hold mostly i 70-80 m/h - around 3000 rpm.

I try to get a good, even spread over all of 'em.

Since my commute covers Highway, City Street, and Freeway driving, I run the gamut of RPM. On the Freeway at 75 to 80, I cruise in 6th.

Whatever road I am on, whenever I am at "cruising speed", I try and keep the RPM's right about 3,000 or above.

However, getting to that "cruising speed", I frequently get into the 6,000+ rpm range. My wife, whom I love dearly but does not know much about cars, keeps telling me I am going to kill my engine by driving that hard. I keep telling her that is what the good Dr. (Porsche) ordered!

Under 3k for warmup then rev it out all the time. 3k plus. make sure to redline when prudent.

I'm not too different than many of the opinions already stated. Don't go much (if any) above 3000 til she's warmed up, then do so as circumstances warrant. Once well-warmed, I don't hesitate to approach redline---I, like most here, love that intoxicating roar accelerating in the higher rpm range.

But I rarely actually hit redline. It's not that I believe it's likely to be a problem---I have no reason not to believe thstone's claims on the matter. To me, though, I just don't see that much to be gained in that last couple hundred rpm, so I don't bother with it.

And, at the other end, I aggressively work to avoid lugging the engine. But that doesn't mean I'm virtually always above 3K. Depending on circumstances, I'll cruise between 2.5K and 3K at times. Long as I'm not attempting to accelerate, driving up much of a hill, etc, I don't really see it as a problem. It's a matter of maintaining one's speed in a (basically) "no load" situation, and I just don't think that's particularly hard on any part of the drive train even in the slightly sub-3K rpm range. In that setting, it's just not a lot of stress on the system. As Ray (of Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the "Tappet Brothers") once explained it: Once a car is up to speed, it takes very little effort to keep it there. In fact (he explains) you could probably just about do it yourself pushing---if you could run that fast. :D

My car has an aftermarket exhaust (Magnaflo mufflers) so I hate running it at less than 3k RPM. I usually shift around 4k - 4.5k but will rev it up to 6k when I am putting the car through its paces.

My car is generally only used on weekends so it sees mostly highway cruising miles at between 3k and 3.6k

+1

Anytime I can get away with it. In town I often leave it in third just so I can zip around traffic.

For me, the rpm range I drive at is a function of engine load. Low engine load, low rpms, high engine load, high rpm. And engine load is determined by how far the throttle is open. Throtle barely open, very little load, throttle wide open, high engine load. So, if I'm in stop and go traffic, I have no problem in going in first gear at 1-2k rpms, since the throttle is barely cracked at all, the motor is almost idling.

Now, when I'm on the freeway and slicing and dicing through traffic, I always keep the rpms at 4k or above, because when I am going to accelerate, I'm going to open the throttle wide. If I were at 1.5k rpms and opened the throttle wide, the engine would be seriously lugging.

That being said, in city traffic, usually 1st and 2nd gear, I stay in the 3-4k range.

Well put, San Resho. As you correctly point out, the issue is not rpm per se (and sometimes, in stop and go, one cannot avoid very low rpm's), but engine load PLUS rpm's. And of course, all of this is assuming that the engine is properly warmed up.

Brad

My '01 S is my daily driver here in Florida. The commute is about 15 miles each way and I make sure to keep it at 2K or above. I did notice in the owner’s manual it says to not run the engine below that RPM. If I'm just putting along, I maintain 2-3K. But, I see red line a time or two almost every day. It revs quickly and I often find myself bumping the rev limiter. I do love how it sounds above 4K. With the stock exhaust it's very quiet below 4K.

This is probably true, though having just driven the entire length of Germany on the autobahn after picking up my Boxster, I can tell you that the myriad of construction zones prevent anything like "hours at a time" high speed driving. That being said, as soon as I got out of those zones and back into the no speed limit stretches, it sure was a hoot winding it up through the gears at which point things got blurry! :D

2000 to redline. I tend to use the whole rev range but maybe that is because I am a "euro":)

Life begins at 5000 rpm...

I've bought into the keep it over 3000 rpm idea. I usually run it between 3000 and 4000 with a few blips up to 5500/6000. No high revs when still warming up.

Here is my dilemma........My drive to work consists mainly of 50-55mph. In 5th gear I'm running around 2200-2500rpms. If I drop it into 4th, I'm at 2700-3000 (I have heard this is the hardest rpm range on our engines so I try to avoid this range for extended periods). If I drop it all the way down to 3rd I will be in the mid to high 3k range of rpms. Honestly, I don't like leisurely driving at near 4000rpms. It's a different story when I'm out for a spirited drive but not when I'm just cruising to work.

It is hard for me to believe that it is beneficial to my engine to constantly run at 3000-4000rpms vs 2000-2500rpm. I understand you don't want to lug the engine but the car easily cruises at 55mph in 5th gear. I'm not saying never drive in the high rpm range (these cars are designed for that) but it seems to me that driving any car that hard all the time would increase engine failures??? I'm not saying I'm right or wrong, I'm just wanting different opinions on the matter.