When I first got my car it had about 20 miles on the odo. Now it has over 1,500. I’ve noticed that it seem’s a little peppier and more eager to kick up the revs than before. I know this could be (and probably is) due to the engine ‘breaking-in’, but I wonder if the manufacturer would set up the computer to de-tune for the first 1k or so. For warranty reasons, I imagine. The salesman advised me, wink-wink, not to red-line for the first 1000 miles, but that’s pretty standard advice .
Anybody know?
Peace,
mangeorge
Can’t say for any other make of car, but for the company I work for the answer is no.
What you are feeling is the normal breaking in of the engine, and depending on the car this may take upwards to 10,000 miles before it is complete.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I do hope it continues to improve. The car already performs pretty good.
Rick is right, and it’s been noted that car perform best about 6000 miles into their lives.
Cool then. 
Gas mileage is supposed to improve too. No harm in that.
I guess I’m just a little suspicious since I learned that an onboard computer monitors your driving habits. Maybe not Audi, but some do. Thanks, all.
Peace,
mangeorge
I know that on my old buick, they specifically state that if you change the battery or otherwise reset the computer that you should vary your driving conditions significantly afterwards so that the computer gets a good range of conditions from which to set itself. Otherwise the performance could be poor. Maybe your computer is similar, that it will improve performance as it gathers data from the way the car responds over time.
mangeorge, I bet you have the Tiptronic transmission too, right? I have a VW Passat with the Tiptronic myself. In addition to the break-in period and engine cpu adaptation already mentioned, the Tiptronic itself adjusts to your driving style. It can vary the shift points based on throttle position and it ‘learns’ your driving habits over time. This can lead to improved performance as well.
I’m wondering if you’ve read you owner’s manual in regards to the break-in period. Mine is very specific about the first 1500 miles and how you should drive the car. There is certainly more to it than the salesman’s advice! Anyway, performance and gas mileage should both improve after break-in. One of the car magazines, I think Car and Driver, mentions the difference in performance between when they first receive a car and the end of their long-term reviews. The cars are nearly always significantly faster at 30,000 miles than when new.
And I should mention, yes the onboard computer in your Audi (as well as my VW) monitors your driving. There are a multitude of error codes that the computer can generate and store. I believe that one of the codes is an over-rev indication, meaning that when you redline the engine, the computer knows and records it. I’ve heard anecdotes of people having warranty service curtailed on modern cars after the dealer determines that they have abused the engine. You can buy a tool that can read all those codes and even let you re-program certain functions in your car. You might check out www.audiworld.com and their forums for all kinds of good info.
P.S. I’ve assumed you’re talking about a new car here based on your mileage. If you somehow have an old Audi with just over 1500 miles, some of this info doesn’t apply. 
I didn’t mention the adaption in my post as it slipped my mind. DOH. Adaption could cause a slight difference in performace, but unless you live in Denver or Colorado Springs you probably won’t notice it. I regulary reset the adaption in my cars when they are used in class, and frankly I can’t notice a difference here in LA. In Denver however, the car can run real funky until it figures out that it is not at sea level. Older cars (pre96) are more prone to this than newer cars.
As far as the error codes for driving style go, I won’t say they don’t exist, but I know that the Bosch fuel systems we use don’t have any over rev indication, we just have a rev limiter built into the sytem. You can’t over rev even if you want to. Why put a code in that says the customer went 7,000 RPM and you have to fight with him over no warrenty, when you can build a control unit that gives 6,500 for 4 seconds and then pulls the max engine speed down to 6,200? No muss no fuss no pissed of customers.
Actually, Enigma42, I have the Multitronic (CVT) transmission. Yep, belt (chain, actually) drive. I’ve never really liked autos, but after a few test drives and some research, I was sold. It, too, is adaptive. Very nice tranny, imo, if it holds together. In manual mode it moves into the next gear versus actually shifting.If you’re interested, there’s an article in one of the online car mags. I recommend you take one for a drive yourself. It’s much quicker than the Tiptronic. In fact, the site I read claimed .1 secomd faster 0-60 than the six speed manual. I believe it, especially considering that most of us aren’t all that skilled with the manual.
I scared the poop out of one salesman. The guy I bought the car from was having as much fun as I was, and giving me advice on when and how to shift for the best performance.
I am breaking the car in properly. Pretty much :). The owners manual didn’t say you couldn’t play once in a while. No redlining, though. Not yet.
I looked at the Passats too. Very nice. I’ve liked them since they firdt came out. But there was just something about the A4 that appealed to me. Go figger, right?
Well, I’m going to pop over to audiworld and try once more to navigate my way through all the b.s. 
My car’s configuration is still kinda new, so there isn’t all that much there for me.
BTW; my last car was a minivan, so I am having a ball.
Peace,
mangeorge
Rick said:
I know that most modern cars have some rev-limiter built in to the system. Mine certainly does (not that I would know first-hand or anything. . . :)) And I don’t have the VAG-COM tool or software to access the fault codes in my car, so I don’t have personal experience with the data it collects. That’s why I mentioned ‘anecdotes’ above. I’m not saying all cars track this, and I agree it seems rather pointless given the built in rev-limiter. But I’ve heard about over-rev codes enough times from trustworthy people to make me think there is something to it. And I know that manufacturers/dealers will sometimes attempt to deny warranty service based on their opinion that the car was abused. I’m not trying to paint all car dealers with the same brush, but some of them are not above doing anything they can to avoid warranty work on a car. And I do have personal experience with that one. . . It wouldn’t surprise me if many systems track the number of occasions on which the rev-limiter kicks in, and it also wouldn’t surprise me if some dealers used that against people.
mangeorge, I forgot about the Multitronic when I posted. I did read quite a bit about, and it sounds pretty slick. I bought my Passat less than a year ago though, so it’s probably not a good idea for me to be test-driving any time soon. Might get me thinking a little too much! I’m happy enough with the Tiptronic for now anyway. I like the A4 a lot too, but I went with the Passat primarily because it has more room in the back (I’ve got the wagon version). But I am very interested in seeing what they do for the S4 version of the new car. See what I mean about thinking too much?
Yeah, sure do. I did drive the TT roadster a little. Hmmm. 
There is a guy that posts on Porsche Pete’s Boxster Board that is able to see the rpm redline counters stored by the computer on his car and is impressed that it is some outrageous number like 49,000+. I think he redlines the engine for every shift. As long as you are approaching the redline from an acceleration the computer will protect the engine. If you approach redline by down shifting the computer will not be able to help.
A buddy of mine was warming up his race prepared Boxster on the warmup lap of a race when he downshifted from fifth to second instead of fifth to fourth. He reported it made a loud bang and was not able to make it back to the starting line for the race.
As for breaking in the engine, some Porsche technicians say to drive the car the way you always will from day one. I followed the manual’s recommendations for my Boxster which says to keep it under 4200 rpm for the first thousand miles. After that you have to keep the rpms under 4200 until the engine reaches normal operating temperature after which you can listen to the sweet sound of the flat six under hard acceleration.
Break-in was much more important in the old days than it is now. The machinery preparing engine parts is much more precise and tolerances much smaller.
I bought a new Z28 in '95. Took it to the dragstrip with 340 miles on it (still had temp-tags). The week after I took it autocrossing.
Still have the car, now with 65k miles on it. Doesn’t use any oil and runs like new.
Markus