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I drive a Dacia Sandero 2 Stepway with a 0.9 TCE gasoline engine. I live on a mountain side and every day, sometimes multiple times a day, I have to drive down a rather narrow, curvy and steep hill (between 17% and 23%). I have two options to go down:

  • Going down in 2nd and pick up a lot of speed, thus breaking a lot and wearing the breaks, going past the speed limit but staying in a comfortable RPM range.
  • Going down in 1st, which is what I currently do. It allows me to stay around the speed limit without using the brakes too much. It also feels much safer. But the engine revs around 4000-5500 RPM.

I would like to know if the engine isn't going to wear to quickly if it revs this high. It last for about 5mins, occasionally stopping to let other cars go up. However, the engine doesn't really have the time to warm up before. Thank you for your answer.

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    You could try using first gear and the brakes, to keep the revs down. The brakes will not suffer as much wear as in 2nd gear, and the engine won't suffer as much wear from the high revs. As you have to stop for those coming up (they have right of way, I think), it's good not to let too much speed build up.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Jun 12, 2021 at 18:41

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As long as you're not hitting redline or overheating, then the engine is fine, you're using engine braking technique which is recommended. You'll still use your brakes but far less. You don't want to rely on your brakes only going downhill because, depending on the degree of slope and the distance, your brakes stand a good chance of overheating and if they do, they will essentially stop working.

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