i'm getting a renault twingo, new, with a turbocharged 1150cc engine.

has my twingo engine worked before i get it from the dealer? i mean, at the factory? a friend of mine says they work it for ten minutes at the rev limiter.

i highly doubt that.

the dealership says that to get it off of the truck that carries it, they will have to turn the engine on. can't they just, you know, roll it off?

do they have the right to do that? who can tell me that they won't rev it like an idiot or that he won't mistreat the starter motor? i've seen ridiculous things here in greece and i am very scared. many people here still have the idea that before you turn the engine off you have to rev it (that was merely an example of idiocy i've encountered).

my previous car was driven from Athens to my home town... someone actually drove it for about 50 miles.

i do not want that to happen again. at all.

tl;dr: i want to be the first to turn on the engine, not anyone else.

It has to come off the factory line and be put ONTO any delivery vehicle. I also expect they need to check that everything works too. Lowest new car I've ever seen had 8 miles on the clock.

I can't think of any cars that won't be run at all somewhere between the production line and the keys being exchanged. I very much doubt it's run for 10 minutes on the rev limiter, as this would kill the engine, but it will have been driven a bit, even if it's just to make sure it works and to get it on/off the lorry.

There is no way to be sure that the work experience boy hasn't revved it cold, or crunched gears, or cranked it for ages on the starter motor. However, the car will come with a warranty, and it's a fairly good bet that any problems relating to it's initial treatment will occur well within the warranty period (and probably the first couple of weeks). It's still unlikely though.

Having a car delivered to your door is a mistake though - think how you treat a hire car on holiday (with as little respect as you can muster probably; it's the chance to thrash a car to see what it's like, without having to worry about it not getting you to work) - that's probably how the delivery driver treats it!!

I think you're being overly paranoid to be honest. It'll be fine and you won't have any problems from the treatment prior to your purchase.

You have to buy the car in the main VW factory then, have you seen that thing It delivers the car by elevator, directly from the production line..

That can't be real! :eye-poppi

Oohhh yes it is.
http://img2.photographersdirec ... mg/19309/wm/pd1514252.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/15878126.jpg

It might be real, but I'm pretty sure those cars will have registered a couple of miles before they get stored in there, and will likely register another couple before they reach any customers.

Quote from Dajmin :

It might be real, but I'm pretty sure those cars will have registered a couple of miles before they get stored in there, and will likely register another couple before they reach any customers.

Thing is, they deliver the keys and car directly to you from that elevator, watched some show about it on Discovery i think.. It says "0" on the milage But offcourse they have to test it, but i'm guessing they do that on the production line, and then set up the milage..

Sometimes the mileage is reset on delivery (yes it is possible).

i was expecting to come of as paranoid and i understand why i give this impression

but still

the question stands... do they have right to drive it since it is not theirs? their job is to transport it, not drive it.

best i can hope for is that they let me take it off the truck myself and let it at least reach operating temperature before being turned off.

that's what i read about what one should do on the first time the engine is turned on

then lively driving with medium-high load across all gears in medium-high revs (away from both idling and limiter revs)

then cooldown, oil change, filter change

then lively driving again...

i'm quite excited about all this

and it's just a silly little car

Until you have the keys, they can pretty much do what they like with it. I very much doubt they'll go round thrashing the crap out of it though. They're just moving it from one place to the other. It's not like it'll even do motorway miles or anything - it'll be small journeys from factory to transport to storage.

You might be getting a dirty cheese-eating surrender-monkey car, but I'm pretty sure they know what to do with new vehicles - they have been on the go for a while

Transporting it requires that it is driven - at the very least onto the transporter, and usually around the depots and things along the way. It wouldn't be cost effective to have people push the car everywhere.

They won't let you drive it off the transporter, as you won't have the required insurance. The fact that it won't reach full temperature won't matter in the slightest.

To run the engine in you need to use all the gears, at varying engine speeds, at varying throttle openings - including full throttle and high revs (once warm), but without letting the engine labour in too high a gear at too low a road speed. Once you have done several hundred miles like this (ideally) then you should change the oil and filter.

But don't worry about the odd bit of running beforehand, as it really won't make any difference.

Quote from Dajmin :

Until you have the keys, they can pretty much do what they like with it. I very much doubt they'll go round thrashing the crap out of it though. They're just moving it from one place to the other. It's not like it'll even do motorway miles or anything - it'll be small journeys from factory to transport to storage.

uh

i am pretty pretty sure they can not do "pretty much what they like with it", because at some point...1 mile? 10 miles? 20 miles? it objectively loses the status of "new car" and starts being called "used". there has to be some kind of limit on paper otherwise they can just use it as they like for as long as they like, go do whatever and then give it to me with 100 miles on the clock. or 1000 miles.

the lancia my family bought in 1996 was DRIVEN from athens to my home town, about 80km.

It's not used, it was merely moved with it's own power.

I think you are nit picking here, when they do the interior, someone has already place their bump on your seat, someone has also already touched the steering wheel when they roll the chassis off the line, the engine would have been ran on a bench before it get into the car, so what is "brand new" anyway?

Quote from JJ72 :

It's not used, it was merely moved with it's own power.

ok then... with your own logic
you go to buy a car. a new car.

you look at the odometer and let's just say that it is correct and not zeroed

you see 1 mile. do you buy it?
you see 10 miles. do you buy it?
you see 100 miles. do you buy it?

now you can answer your own question "when is it brand new".

personally i think anything above 1mile is suspect because the car does not need to be driven that much to go from the factory floor, round the back, on the transporter, and off the transporter to the dealership.

i also see some motorbikes at that dealership. bmw r1200gs. i see the exhaust and it has become BLACK near the cylinder. and they sell it as new?? how harshly must it have been driven already so that the exhaust has been discolored this much?!? my father's gn250 was driven for 10 years... 10 years it was driven by a 110kg guy with his gear and baggage on open and twisty mountain roads... and the exhaust was as clear as new (it even had some of its initial shininess).

Quote from tristancliffe :

They won't let you drive it off the transporter, as you won't have the required insurance. The fact that it won't reach full temperature won't matter in the slightest.

not a very convincing argument since it won't be on public road but on private area, the dealership garage... but anyway let's not get involved on this

Quote from tristancliffe :

To run the engine in you need to use all the gears, at varying engine speeds, at varying throttle openings - including full throttle and high revs (once warm), but without letting the engine labour in too high a gear at too low a road speed. Once you have done several hundred miles like this (ideally) then you should change the oil and filter.

i've read these:

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

http://www.ntnoa.org/enginebreakin.htm

http://motorcycles.suite101.co ... ngine_breakin_controversy

Quote from tristancliffe :

But don't worry about the odd bit of running beforehand, as it really won't make any difference.

an engineer (mechanical engineer) friend of mine who i respect a lot (i mean a real lot) as far as competence and knowledge (he completely stripped down and rebuilt a 250cc 16v watercooled bike engine on his own, in his home and the engine started immediately. i'm just giving an example.) said that it is not really good to do that to an engine. turn it on, drive a few meters, turn it off.

The lowest mileage used car I've seen is a C1 at 100 miles, they couldn't sell it as new because it was used as a demonstrator.

Whether they could sell it with this mileage as new if it wasn't used as a demo I don't know. There must be a cutoff point though. 20 miles?

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Thing is, they deliver the keys and car directly to you from that elevator, watched some show about it on Discovery i think.. It says "0" on the milage But offcourse they have to test it, but i'm guessing they do that on the production line, and then set up the milage..

I will be going there in January/February to fetch a new car. I will report back how many miles it had on the clock if I remember this thread.

Wikipedia says that cars are handed over to owners at Autostadt with 0 mileage, whether that is true or not I don't know.

Quote from 5haz :

That can't be real! :eye-poppi

"I have seen vast fields, where Volkswagens are not born; they are grown"

Quote from george_tsiros :

ok then... with your own logic
you go to buy a car. a new car.

you look at the odometer and let's just say that it is correct and not zeroed

you see 1 mile. do you buy it?
you see 10 miles. do you buy it?
you see 100 miles. do you buy it?

now you can answer your own question "when is it brand new".

If they have 10 miles on it I would question why they needed to drive it instead of using other methods (and Hong Kong being such a small place, you are never 10 miles alway from the dock anyway), but as long as the condition of the car is satisfactory all around I wouldn't have much of a problem with it, cos I don't have any affection on being first to start it or whatever, to me it's new.

100 miles? I've never heard of anything like that.

If you are afraid of people thrashing or damaging the car, mileage isn't a very representative measurement, I've seen cars being damaged just by moving it in a tight space, so if you have to worry, you have plenty to worry about even if they moved it for 10 feet.

So....a practical solution might be going for a private dealer that you know, or make it very clear when you order that you want an example with no more than whatever mileage you are happy with.

It’s not possible for you to be the first one to turn on the engine.
Engine has already run in the factory for a specific amount of time and in specific conditions. It’s an essential part of the quality control procedure of any product like this.

Now as for the distance driven from the factory to your dealership, and to you as a customer. This is something you should ask your dealer about.


Anyway you shouldn’t worry that much about this. A double digit number of driven km would hardly make any difference to your engine’s lifespan.
Your piston rings will have enaugh amount of time to seal under your own driving.

Quote from george_tsiros :

i'm getting a renault twingo, new, with a turbocharged 1150cc engine.

has my twingo engine worked before i get it from the dealer? i mean, at the factory? a friend of mine says they work it for ten minutes at the rev limiter.

i highly doubt that.

the dealership says that to get it off of the truck that carries it, they will have to turn the engine on. can't they just, you know, roll it off?

do they have the right to do that? who can tell me that they won't rev it like an idiot or that he won't mistreat the starter motor? i've seen ridiculous things here in greece and i am very scared. many people here still have the idea that before you turn the engine off you have to rev it (that was merely an example of idiocy i've encountered).

my previous car was driven from Athens to my home town... someone actually drove it for about 50 miles.

i do not want that to happen again. at all.

tl;dr: i want to be the first to turn on the engine, not anyone else.

all cars get not Really trashed.. but abused when imported here for exaple... make sure your car has no removeable features like sporty gear knob or such as they will go missing.

thanks for your replies guys...

When my dad got his car it had 14 miles on the odo.



Must have taken it a few laps on the oval

And yes that is the Kia factory.

We can haz kia factory in LFS?

Quote from Crashgate3 :

"I have seen vast fields, where Volkswagens are not born; they are grown"

Good one