New break-in period: how strictly do you follow it?

edkwon

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For those who dont know what im referring to, im talking about the drivetrain/engine breakin procedure recommended on new cars for the first 1000 or so miles on the odo.

for those who never bought a new car, you can ignore this thread.

for those who hve purchased a new car, which school of thought do you follow?

1. keep the revs limited and never exceed a prescribed limit (something like 4000 rpm on a car with 6-8000 redline as an example) and always vary up the speed (never drive at a fixed cruise control speed on freeways for that initial 1000 miles or so.

2. drive it like youre always going to drive the car, if you drive conservatively normally, then drive conservative, if you like to drive aggressive and spirited and run it thru the rev range, then do so, if you drive like you stole the car, then thrash it like you normally would.

the first two cars ive owned (which i purchased new) i went with #1, but my third car i just rove it normally and let it rev when appropriate, however i did try to avoid fixed speeds for hours at a time (i did a couple long freeway drives during the initial period).

what does everyone think about this?
 
In my case, I read the manual and it said not to exceed 2/3 of the RPMs, followed that completely. And it also said that I should actually drive at constant speeds.
My guess is that the engineers who built the car know best, and they transfer their knowledge to the secretary that writes up the manuals
 
I drove it like I would drive it normally, but never gave it the beans.

When I broke my car in, I kept it under 4000 with some accelerations up to 4500. Varied my driving a lot, drove through the city for a while, took the back way home with a bit of curves to keep speed changing, then would take the interstate the next day.

If I did drive the interstate I wouldn't use the cruise either, and would give a tap of throttle whilst passing just to change the speed up a bit.

Now the dealer told me to give it a good throttle up every and then, and about 800-900 miles would be good. But I decided to just drive it normally without getting tempted up to 1000 miles.
 
I follow it very strictly, and it has always paid off.

I hardly ever get any problems or hiccups, but then again... I always buy new cars and sell them after a few years, so dunno if that counts.

But yeah, I baby my car for the first 2000km or so.
 
There's two schools of thought on this.

You can:

1. Flog the everloving shit out of it, to get the maximum peformance (vastly generalized) at the expense of (extremely long-term) durability, or

2. Drive it like there's a nun sitting on the hood, for the opposite reasons.



Choose based on how long you intend to own the car.
 
There's two schools of thought on this.

You can:

1. Flog the everloving shit out of it, to get the maximum peformance (vastly generalized) at the expense of (extremely long-term) durability, or

2. Drive it like there's a nun sitting on the hood, for the opposite reasons.



Choose based on how long you intend to own the car.

You won't be able to get the best performance from an new engine.

So no point in flooring it when its still new.
 
Well I did sorta the inbetween thing here, to make this even more complicated.
I break it in the first couple of 1000 kms, then I gradually let the engine warm up and sometimes floor it to see how the engine responds.

You can really feel if the engine really "wants" to accelerate or not, so you can adjust your driving style.

As of 10k kms you can flog the everloving shit out of it and it'll thank you for it
 
I always take it easy even over the 1000mile mark. I take it easy until the 1500mile mark.
 
Break-in period? wat is tat? :p I never had a new car so that isn't an issue for me.. On my bikes i take them to a track, because i want max performance on them!!
 
We own a Mazda 6 we got from leasing(It's very popular in Israel to buy cars via you work, and that thing is called leasing). The leasing takes full care of your car if it breaks down and gives you a replacement while they fix it.

So when we got the Mazda 6, we totally ignored the break-in periods recommendations as we knew that if the car would break - it'd get fixed. So far we have the car for almost a year, and all is well!
 
Never had a car with much less than 20000km on the clock. More like 200000km.


edit: No wait, my "company-car" came new.
 
I believe that modern cars don't need that much of a "break in" due to the modern technologies used throughout the engine. However, I think a new car should be driven carefully but not conservatively. In other words, don't rev a brand new engine till the redline. That's just stupid.
 
I believe that modern cars don't need that much of a "break in" due to the modern technologies used throughout the engine. However, I think a new car should be driven carefully but not conservatively. In other words, don't rev a brand new engine till the redline. That's just stupid.

Breaking in the car isn't just about engine. Tyres, brakes, suspension etc are all part of the process.
 
We own a Mazda 6 we got from leasing(It's very popular in Israel to buy cars via you work, and that thing is called leasing). The leasing takes full care of your car if it breaks down and gives you a replacement while they fix it.

So when we got the Mazda 6, we totally ignored the break-in periods recommendations as we knew that if the car would break - it'd get fixed. So far we have the car for almost a year, and all is well!


Well I imagine if you want to buy the car afterwards, you'd be easy on it at first, even if they fix the car for you, heavy use of the accelerator on a new car, shortens its life dramatically...
 
My Cougar is the only car I bought new and I didn't do any kind of break in period with it. It's been fine so far, but it only has 100k miles on it, so I can't properly speak to long term durability.
 
Subaru told me to keep it under 4000 rpms for the first 1000 miles, for the most part I did, but I would wind it to redline and, after 13000 miles, have not seen one problem. In fact, I have read that occasionally revving up the WRX / STI / Legacy GT engines during the break in period will do no such harm, they are pretty stout.

So in essence, I drove from day one like I would for the rest of ownership.
 
when i rebuilt my engine i followed the break in procedure very tightly. i dont wanna F something up after i just rebuilt it. but thats the only thing that requires a break in time for the new bearings and flat tappet lifters
 
We drove our Golf GTI 800km on a highway immediately after delivery, but varied the load it was put under and changed gears almost constantly. After that we drove it as normal, but didn't start giving it heaps until it was a few thousand kilometres old.

When my R36 gets here I'll drive it as normal and load the engine (not necessarily by high RPM - making it work by going up hills in the wrong gear and so on) for the first couple of thousand K's before giving it heaps.
 
Pretty sure there was already a thread on this here on finalgear, but anyway...I rode my bike pretty hard right off the lot. Never close to it's limits, I didn't want my fresh tires to turn my day into one like this guy's...

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9zNUPDmnz4[/YOUTUBE]

I did do a few sprints though, and varied RPM vastly.

Here is a link I found while searching on the subject before I made my purchase, and like I said I think there was already a thread on here (where this was also posted)
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

Pretty good read. I would break in the engine however you personally feel comfortable, though.

Edit: nevermind, this was the thread I was thinking of... http://forums.finalgear.com/general-automotive/new-car-confused-24858/
 
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It depends on how long you'll have the car for.

With my next car, I'm tempted to spank the crap out of it from the get go, as it will be gone in 12 months anyway. :p That, and I've always wanted to try out the MotoMan method on that link ...
 
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