My recent...umm, experiment... with mpg to see how low I can go got me thinking - for those of you who drive spirited the majority of the time, how much are you letting the engine warm before going about your business? It takes 6-7 minutes for the engine to unlock 7200rpm and I always baby it until at least this point, but is this a good enough point to start opening it up to avoid undue wear beyond the hard driving? For all the temp gauge to reach their normal operating level takes more like 10-12 minutes.

Curious as I have several strerches in my area where opening it up is tons of fun but they fall within that 6-10 minute window with typical traffic.

 

Maybe foolish of me, but with any of my Lexus I assumed they "dummy proofed" the vehicle for damage (unless hitting poles). From my LC manual which leads me to believe it's protected;

■Variable red zone
To help protect the engine, the engine
speed is controlled by starting the red zone
of the tachometer at different engine
speeds ranging from 3700 rpm to 7300
rpm depending on the engine coolant temperature.

 

Yup for sure they've done that and I assume that alone helps limit excessive wear but I still can't imagine it's not detrimental long term to be flooring to the variable red line right out of the garage

 

Agree, but I would think Engineering included wide enough tolerance's to prevent damage whether fully warmed or not. I tell myself that since I have made the mistake of hitting the red line when using the paddle shifters, once.

 

lol I still bounce off the rev limiter every now and then as I'm still learning the feel of the car at various speeds/gears when pulling after so many years in my GS. It reaches redline quicker than I expect it to sometimes, not that that's a bad thing