This is one of those things that is hard to answer. There may have been extra wear on the engine because of the high rpms, but over the life of the car this is probably imperceptible. You are no longer doing this to the car, so this is good.

Personally, I would say, try not to worry about it, but I know how you feel.

When my wife test drove the XT we bought (which is a baseCVT), she grabbed the gearshift and pushed it all the way to the back and then pulled it to the side, which is low gear and then floored the accelerator. I'm like "Wait! Wait! That's low gear!"

 

It was probably saved by the redline protection. My dad had a V12 Jag in the 70s and for whatever reason put it in the lowest gear, then forgot and got on the motorway doing 80mph. The engine was so quiet and smooth he didn't notice it was doing 10K RPM or something like that. Caused quite a bit of damage to the engine which, as you can imagine, was not cheap to repair on a V12. Valves and push rods, I recall.

 

YIKES! That’s all I can say. Maybe get your daughter to do some sort of drivers education course Or show her some basic car things...So many people these days buyncars and don’t have a clue about them when it comes to how they function, service, checking things like oil, tire presure...if you don’t have TPMS, changing wiper blades, air filters for the cabin and engine, etc.. yada, yada, yada.

 

Reminds me of the time, a couple years ago, when a woman came on this forum asking about the low oil warning on the dash. Apparently she had been driving 10s of thousands miles since she got the car, without changing the oil or even checking it. After getting advice here, she got the oil changed, and I don't think there was any engine damage.

 

Yeah, that was a weird one. You'd think the dealer would've been pestering her to take it in for service.

 

If the engine was already "broken in" with, say, 1000 miles or more on it I'd say it's fine. Out of curiosity, at the next oil change you might send a sample to a lab to see the amount of metallic particles. But I don't know of what practical use that would be except for an excuse to sell the car.

 

the ole engine break-in myth....

 

The engine is designed to operate within those ranges. It’s fine. If the rpm got near enough it would’ve up shifted on its own. If the engine got hot, the Ecu would back down engine rpm and go for limp mode as well as all sorts of dash lights. Change the oil if it helps you sleep better.

 

Thanks for the reassurance. I got in it one more time this evening to try and recreate her daily drive . I can get up to 60 mph on the highway in first gear without redlining the engine, but it's loud. I just can't understand, having been around cars her whole life (even if she wasn't the one driving it), how she thought that noise was normal and kept on going.

so she never got suspicious enough all those weeks to say do a google search?

I have asked her the same question. It's not like she hasn't been in our cars all the time since she was born. Surely she never heard an engine that sounded like that. She is an honors student, but clearly this is not a book smart thing.

 

Time to trade in for a new model.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Things you can do for piece of mind:
1. Change the oil and oil filter right now.
2. Get under the car to inspect transmission to see any leaks. Probably nothing to worry about, but nice to look under there and learn some new stuff about your car. I'm sure all those high revs and late-second "shifts" from the CVT, the CVT probably didn't like that too much.
3. When you change your engine oil, keep an eye on the dipstick to see if you are burning any oil. You shouldn't since it's a new vehicle.

Doesn't hurt to call your local Subaru service department and ask for some advice and see if you even need to bring it in. They probably gonna tell you to keep driving it, but keep an eye and hear out to see if you notice anything. Subaru has a pretty good trade-in value, if you are planning to keep it for 2-3 years before upgrading, then you probably don't have to worry too much. It might suck for the next person though.

 

Hey Gang,

So my daughter is a newer driver. I brought home my Crosstrek a few weeks ago and, because she didn't want to drive our van, I just told her she could drive it, and I would drive the van. I didn't give her a tour of the car, bus assumed since she knew how to drive the old car the new car wouldn't be any different.

She mentioned about a week later that the car was really loud and said it would slow down by itself. I took it out and it sounded fine to me...seemed to brake okay. I didn't know what to make of it. I let her keep driving it. I got into the car with her a week later, and she put the car in manual (M) to drive it. I mentioned to her that she had it in M, and she said "Yeah. that's where I have been putting it." I said "WHAT?, YOU HAVE BEEN DRIVING IN MANUAL THIS WHOLE TIME? HAVE YOU BEEN DRIVING ON THE HIGHWAY? HAVE YOU BEEN SHIFTING?" To which she replied, "What's that?"

So, she was driving the car in M instead of D for weeks. Apparently the computer will not let you redline the car and will automatically shift if you don't, but I tested it today and you need to get up to 5,000-6,000 RPM's before that safety kicks in. Given that she was driving like this for such a long period of time, may she have damaged the car? The car seems to be okay and drives fine. Is there anything else I need to do to? Should I take it in for service?

My daughter now knows that D means drive in all cars, and that is the gear she should be using to drive. I now know that I should not assume that a crazy loud noise coming from a car due to high RPM's is not necessarily alarming to a new driver, even if she has never heard the noise before.

Any advice?

so she never got suspicious enough all those weeks to say do a google search?

 

Your engine should be great after prolonged italian tune up, just confirm by hearing the sound of it. One possible drawback is only if the engine sucks too much oil from PCV and burns it, if it is then gdi intake cleaner should be applied to help clean it from the combustion chamber

 

My daughter now knows that D means drive in all cars, and that is the gear she should be using to drive.

Well, that is maybe half the lesson. Have you also explained about downshifting on steep downgrades?

 

I have not, but I am only just learning about the awesome benefits of the manual option on the car.

 

Any advice?

Yea. It's called an owners manual. READ IT.

 

ALL DRIVERS!

 

Guys, the last two posts are pretty harsh and I'm a RTFM guy...

I liked that the Crosstrek came with a quick guide as well as a full manual (several, in fact). They are also available for download from MySubaru and are searchable PDFs, which is useful.

If I were in this situation, and were able to have a do over, I'd probably run her through the basic controls, maybe even drive around the block with her, as a passenger, before letting her take off in it.

 

Harsh?? There is no way to put a positive spin on the situation.

It's done and over with. Hopefully without any consequences... except some learning.

Personally, I refrain from airing anyone's Fail but my own. For certain never a family member's.

 

The point I'm making is that we've probably all done stupid things, especially as young/new drivers. I wrote off three cars before I was 20, how I learned bodywork, LOL.

Here's one - I was driving on a highway and wanted something out of the glovebox that was locked. Rather than wait for the next exit I thought it would be OK to remove the keys, coast in neutral for a few seconds, and unlock the glove box. Then the steering locked!

It's like when someone is brave enough to post here that they drained the CVT fluid instead of the oil. They're looking for help, not judgment...

 

I’ve redlined my car from cold and drove it hard the past 5 years.

it’s at 9 years old and 110k and I don’t have any issues.

modern cars aren’t made to be able to mill themselves very easily it will be fine. This post made me lol

 

Gotta be honest, not knowing that a car revving up to, and staying around 6000 rpm, while driving normally on any highway, is not normal, really shows incompetence on two different levels: 1) the driver, and 2) the driver training received. Every person that is learning to drive should be taught and should be able to demonstrate knowledge of basic expected behavior and functionality of a vehicle, and the meaning of labels and symbols present in a car. They are basically all the same regardless of manufacturer, and done so deliberately for ease of use.
The low oil pressure light always looks the same, regardless if Volvo or Königsegg, and "D" on the transmission gear selector always means "drive", regardless if Toyota or.. Ford...spits.
My suggestion would be to have your daughter spend some time learning and/or being trained by a competent instructor before she'll do irreversible damage and/or harm by not knowing what to do in case of an overheating engine, in a loss of control situation, or when another unusual, unexpected behavior occurs, such as a tire going flat and instead of pulling over in a controlled manner continues to drive until the sparks fly.