Dear Tom and Ray:

I was driving to work this morning in my 1996 Honda Civic with the CD player playing really loudly to mask the sound of my new studded snow tires. I heard a high, whining sound. I turned off the heater fan. No change. I turned off the CD player. Still there. Then I looked down and noticed that I was going about 55 mph in second gear! There's no tachometer on this car, so I usually shift by listening to the engine noise, which I couldn't hear with the music blaring. So I guess I just forgot to shift. I probably drove like this for a total of 30 seconds, a minute at most. Everything seems fine. But did I do the engine any harm? -- Susan

Tom: Don't worry, Susan. I've done this myself several times. Fortunately, though, never with my own car!

Ray: Right. My brother did it most recently with an Infiniti I30 we were testing. And it IS easier to make this mistake with better engineered cars like the Infiniti, which have wonderful, smooth engines.

Tom: HAD wonderful, smooth engines!

Ray: Actually, you didn't do any damage, Susan, so don't worry about it. I'd guess that at 55 mph in second gear, you were doing about 5,500 rpm in this car. And that's below this engine's "red line."

Tom: The "red line" is named for the red "danger" area on the tachometer, which tells you when the engine's going too fast. If you drive your car with the tachometer above the red line, there's a real danger that the engine will fly apart into two hardware stores' worth of nuts and bolts.

Ray: But as long as you stay below the red line (and as long as you don't run the engine right near the red line on a regular basis) the engine will be fine. It's designed to operate safely at speeds up to the red line. So I'd forget all about it, Susan.

Tom: But you might want to turn down the music a bit. Even if you don't care to know when to shift, it's always nice to be able to hear an ambulance, or someone honking at you in an emergency, right?

Stop the madness! You can stop driving like a knucklehead, and you'll help your car in the process. Learn how your driving habits can harm your car in Tom and Ray's pamphlet "Ten Ways You May Be Ruining Your Car Without Even Knowing It!" To order, send (check or money order) to Ruin, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. You can also order online.

© 1998 by Tom and Ray Magliozzi and Doug Berman Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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