Hi, I'm new here. I just picked up a 98 A4 2.8l a few months ago, pearl white. I love this car and it's the first nice (to me) car I've ever had as I'm just turning 19 in a week.

The car is a manual and sometimes when I'm driving around town or whatever I get worked up and end up redlining it maybe 500 or 1000 rpm over the line for half a second or so. Obviously I try to avoid this but I'm curious as to how bad it is for the car if/when it does happen on a rare occasion? If it matters I drive anywhere between 5000 ft. and 12000 ft. altitude as I live in and around the mountains. I don't want to mess up my car so I'm curious just basically how bad this is for the engine as I really know nothing about that sort of stuff.

Thanks in advance for any input!

BTW there are ~77k miles on the vehicle.

 

Not bad at all, considering the 2.8L is a bulletproof motor. Just make sure your timing belt and pulleys are changed.

Also if you do alot of high performance driving, change your oil more. Use
ACEA3 compliant oils.

 

if you float a valve (something that happens above redline) you stand the chance of sticking it through a piston. not a good thing. Just don't do it any more. or if what I hear is correct, the valves are a hole lot more likely to bend. then you can have your head rebuilt.