What should idle rpm be

Most of the gauges are located to the left of the speedometer. As an example, if the gauge needle reads 2, multiply by 1, RPM is used as a good indicator to use if you happen to be driving a car with a standard transmission.

Your RPM gauge will give you a good idea of when you can shift to a higher or lower gear. Your RPM indicator can also let you know if your transmission has a serious issue.

A sure sign of this issue is seeing your tachometer rise and your vehicle cannot shift. Ignoring this problem will cause complete transmission failure. The idle RPM of a car depends on the type of engine your car has. Idle adjustments are made by manipulating the idle mixture screws that control the airflow in the carburetor and the process is performed while the engine is running, so only trained personnel or a professional mechanic should perform an adjustment.

Environmental agencies at the state and federal levels, along with private research tanks have discovered that excessive idling might be more harmful than simply shutting a car down. While it remains true that a car's idle is a good way to determine the health of an engine for the purposes of a tuneup and maintenance, idle for the sake of waiting for someone in a restaurant drive-thru can cause undue harm to engine parts and waste gas.

In most cases modern engines do not need more than seconds to warm up and run efficiently and, in fact, driving the car is a better warmup than a simple idle. A graduate of St. John's University in New York, he holds a bachelor's degree in communication arts.

Auto trans around RPM. Manu trans vary, but my Sonic looks like RPM. That could also be a reason the 1. Last edited: Jan 25, Chevrolet Customer Care New member. Maxbrokeaway said:. Chevrolet Customer Servic said:. Maxbrokeaway, I would suggest that you take your Sonic into your dealership for the service department to take a look at it.

They are in the best position to let you know if you are experiencing an issue with your vehicle. Please keep us posted on the outcome of you appointment.

If you have any further questions please feel free to message me. Thank you, Stacy Chevrolet Customer Service. I'm having them look at the trans as well as the tach and also the car vibrates a good bit when im at a stop light so i told them about that too. Wondering if it's all related to the transmission since it seems to shift early at times. On a side note.

I noticed my car didn't come with rear floor mats so they are replacing all of my floor mats with the premium floor mats free of charge!

So far a great experience with Chevy customer service!! If was its safe limit then that would be the redline. Now rpm might be considered as unsafe. Maintaining higher RPM not only increases the temperature of the engine but also degrades the quality of the engine oil and which results in frequent oil changes.

Also, the life of the engine deteriorates when it is continuously abused by the driver by red lining it in the shorter gears. Running an engine some RPM below its redline should be absolutely find for extended periods of time. Excessive High RPM While extremely low rpm and high loads will damage your transmission right away, sustained high rpm may damage it over the long run. High rpm means more wear on the bearings and oil seals, and quicker transmission fluid breakdown.

If you drive at 5, RPM, that bearing is going to use up its lifetime twice as fast as if you were driving at 2, RPM.

If your prime directive is mechanical lifetime, shoot for lower RPM within a reasonable range i. Yes, higher engine speed is a part of knocking off the build-up but high air flow and high heat loads assist in the cleaning process as well. This over stresses bearings and is poor for fuel economy.

In a higher gear at rpm you will be going faster maybe 50 mph. So, rpm would be about 26 mph. As a rough approximation, add 2 zeroes to the mph to get rpm: 93 mph is about rpm. You can back off the cold idle speed if your engine does not stall out at a lower speed, 3k seems a bit high to me. I usually like about rpm for cold fast idle, but it does not usually get as cold here as it does where you live. Hi There, It sounds like you may have a dirty or failing idle air control valve causing your engine idle to fluctuate.

When this happens, the job of the idle air control valve is to bring this deceleration down to a slow and smooth idle rather than suddenly cutting off the fuel supply causing the motor to die. In modern vehicles, engine idle speed is most often controlled by the idle air control IAC motor.