I was test driving a MCSa out of D&R this weekend and as I was shifting through the gears I could have sworn from previous drives the red line was at 6000 RPMs. Well I look down and I swear the red line was at or at least closer to 7000. Now I'm not going to quote my MA, because honestly I don't remember his exact words. As best as I can remember it he said it changes with temperature. Does the red line change? If so, why does it change?

Maybe my memory of the past test drives are wrong. Either way, straighten this out for please.

 

My MCSa has a redline of just about 7000 RPM. It doesn't seem to change due to temperature. But I bet the temp of the engine changes the redline rather then the weather.

 

It's my understanding that it does not, the extra lights on the MCS tach are for when the same tach piece is used in a MC.

Two years with a MINI and I've yet to see it move.

 

The MCa has a 6000 redline.

 

It might have been my time test driving both the MCa and MCSa that screwed me up on the red line.

 

I thought that may have been the case.

 

I thought it was 6800. I never really researched the configuration for an automatic tranny, though. And in a modern engine, what we call the redline is usually some sort of electronic governing rather than the actual mechanical limits of the engine. And that's not necessarily a bad thing...

 

It's not an active change like the M3 or M5 but it can be changed with tunning software. The MINI one has a much lower redline than MC which is lower than an MCS and apperantly if you move it all the way up to 8k RPM the valves won't fully close in each cycle. I can't comment on the difference b/w manual and auto tranny redlines but I would not be suprised if the redline on the auto was slightly lower that that of a manual tranny.