For the most part, you will just see average run-of-the-mill cars on the road. But very occasionally, you will see something special. Whilst you are not likely to see high-performance cars on the road very often, the ones you do see generally look like they have been treated with the love, care and attention that they deserve.
To give you an example; I recently saw a used Jaguar XF that looked as though it had just driven out of a car dealer’s showroom with just a few delivery miles on the clock! But then there are the occasional high-performance car drivers that literally drive their cars as if they stole them! Obviously, this is not a good way to treat your pride and joy, and there are also some other things that you shouldn’t do to such cars. Check out these examples to illustrate just what I mean.
“Redlining” every gear change
One of the most-appalling examples of motoring that you see some stupid high-performance car drivers doing is taking the car’s engine to the rev limiter in each gear change.
Whilst this might be something you’d do on a car with a 1.0-litre engine that’s around 15 years old, it’s certainly something that should be avoided when you are driving around in a car that is probably worth more than the value of most people’s homes!
Ignoring service intervals
Although engine oil technology has advanced so much these days that it is now possible to go between services for longer periods of time, ignoring the car manufacturer’s recommended service interval schedules is a big no-no!
Regardless of whether the car you drive is a Ferrari F355 or a Ford Focus, the engines contained within any car are mechanical devices that need to be maintained on a regular basis in order to ensure their longevity. And in case it’s not glaringly obvious to you, it will cost you a significant amount more money to repair a damaged Ferrari engine than it would a Ford one.
Using the wrong octane fuel
Admittedly, gasoline octane ratings are different in each country. For example, what Americans would refer to as “regular” petrol has an octane rating of 89, but if you go across the pond to the United Kingdom, and the lowest octane of standard unleaded petrol is 95.
Turbocharged cars normally require even higher octane petrol; it’s not uncommon to run Japanese turbocharged cars on premium or “super” unleaded, for example, and have to use a bottle of octane booster if the car is an import (as opposed to one that is sold through the main dealer network from new).
Modern engines have knock sensors that help to tell the engine whether to retard or advance the ignition timing, but if you constantly put the wrong octane rating of unleaded petrol in your car, you can end up potentially damaging it in the long term.
There are plenty more things that you shouldn’t do in expensive, high-performance cars and I would be here all week listing every single one, but the main thing you should take away from this blog post is that you should treat all cars with the respect and care that they deserve, and in return they will give you years of reliable service!