New car engine break-in period -- should I even care/worry?
 

I have a broad question: anyone buy a BRZ and drive it a long distance home?

I'm currently debating on this, and frankly I don't care too much if I get the most out of my "new engine". To me, there's plenty of other ways to monitor engine health beyond a 1000-mile break-in period, such as periodic oil analysis, dyno runs (for monitoring engine power output), gas mileage tracking (I do this with virtually every vehicle I own), etc.

Constructive comments welcome.

-alex

(P.S. I'm well aware that it is suggested to have a break-in period for a new car, but the same type of recommendation also tells you to break in brake pads over a 200-mile period with no hard stops. Anyone that has ever run new pads/rotors would know this is not how you break in pads/rotors... so I generally take the recommendations with a grain of salt.

Drive it hard right away. I'm experiencing some oil consumption and I fully believe it's because I babied the shit out of the car in the first 1k miles.

I have driven every car that I have ever owned the same way from the beginning until I parted with them. I have never had any engine or transmission issues. If you are doing a long trip for your first drive ensure that you run it through the RPMs and stretch you cars legs from time to time. Bottom line IMHO is that you should break it in the way you intend to drive it.

If you're worried about ring seals or whatever can't you just go WOT while in a higher gear and seat the rings well without breaking the recommended RPM limit?

Breaking in is bullshit. Ignore it. Seriously.

Just don't abuse the brakes or bounce off the redline right away, common sense.

If driving for hours on the highway, don't stay at the same speed/RPMs for too long, fluctuate your speed slightly every few minutes.

This is what I believed caused a lot of ECU problems other than coding. People would baby the first 1k miles and then the car would freak out after the first 1k and the ECU flipped out. Basically I drove exactly how I drive daily. I do not redline at every light, I am a little heavy on the throttle and shifts are in the 4k range usually to avoid the torque dip in between shifts. Drive it how you wanna drive it every day. Keep it away from red line though. That is just common sense.

i remember we had a discussion about this some time ago. Someone mentioned that engines are built much better, and come out of the factory with better quality assurance than 20-30 years ago. When break ins were about getting the optimal lubrication and allowing the gaskets to go through several heat cycles for seating. But today, getting oil through the engine and getting it lubed up is almost instantaneous, and OEM gaskets seat better after it rolls out of the factory.

When i do rebuilds on my rx7, or some other engines I do a pretty extensive break in period. But I wouldn't do the same on a newer vehicle like the BRZ.

I'm sorry to say this but your statement above is pretty hypocritical! You say breaking in an engine is bs and to ignore it but than say that you should fluctuate rpms.....that is BREAKING in an engine!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is about to get ugly.

Haha......not trying to start anything. ;)

ive owned 2 brand new cars so far and i just drive it how i normally would. except i dont abuse it till after 1k

I drove my car back from Colorado (live in Tempe AZ) which is about a 800 mile, 16 hour drive. I kept it under 4000 (most of the time ;) ) as suggested, and have had no problems with it what so ever. Honestly, I would be more concerned about VARYING the RPMs rather than keeping it under 4000. Last thing you want to do is set it on cruise and drive at the same speed / RPM for an extended period of time. But that's just my 2 cents. Take it for what it's worth.

Warm the car up fully, then vary your RPMs and drive the car in the same manner as if you had owned the car for a year. All this babying, never letting the RPMs go over a magical number, slow turns, slow shifts - it's all useless. If you watch any of the National Geographic mega/ultimate factories episodes where they make cars like Camaros, Corvettes, BMWs, etc. these cars roll right off the factory line, go to a dyno while the car hasn't had time to really warm up.

Also consider how these cars are loaded onto the ship from Japan. Do you think dock workers have time to start each car up, let it reach operating temperature and slowly, gently drive your car into position on the ship? Hell no. These guys are on a schedule.

v0v

I've taken mine over 4k a few times, but only for brief moments. I made an effort to drive side and back roads (in addition to DD duties in the city, obviously), so the RPMs have been varied more or less constantly and I figure every part of the car gets a decent workout. This weekend I'll break 1k and then it'll be all high-RPMs all the time on nice roads. Toot!

If there's a backroad / alternative to the freeway, that would be the way to go.

Thanks for the info.

I would suggest a moderator edit one of the stickies up top that specifically has information regarding a break-in period, including the brake pads...

I mostly was seeking info from people who have put a lot of miles on the car within a short period of time after purchasing (i.e. drove it home long distance, or made long trips with it after buying the car).

Me personally, I don't care too much for the warranty as I do plan on making major engine mods once the warranty period runs out. The warranty is only there for me to prevent mods for the first 3 years.

-alex

P.S. not sure who has done it yet, but I'm buying my car in Colorado and driving it back to SoCal within 24 hours. Anyone drive their car a longer distance?

I was curious about this question as well. I will be driving my car back from CO to SoCal.

I was thinking I'll try to keep it under 4K, but honestly, on a long road trip, I don't mind creeping up to 7K. As long as it's slowly getting there, I'll be shifting between the gears so I can get some use out of 1, 2, 3 and 4th gear. I mean once you get to around 6-700 miles, you would think that would be enough to break in any engine? As others have stated, this car goes right on the dyno after production. So I plan on going past 4K, as long as I'm not beating the car and driving it too hard, I think it'll be fine.

Now my main question here. If someone wanted to follow the "don't pass 4K ever" rule, how hard do you drive it to that 4K limit? Slow and easy? Or pedal to the metal?

I drove my car sensibly at every range (just not harsh) during the so called period. Technically if you haven't run it at 6k then you haven't run it at 6k and that my friend is considered a break in. Do it WHEN you feel comfortable doing it but sensibly (if you have an aggressive style). This is my opinion. I also believe the engines are put through a full suite of passing tests for cert purposes, that just goes without saying.

I had the break in miles done within 3 days.
Stayed off the freeway. Bumped it up over 4k a bit past 750mi once in a while.
Still sounds happy.

Have not hit the rev limit yet.

Part of my break-in was driving to/from LA, I hit 1k on the way home. Didn't baby it too much, but kept it under 5k for the most part, didn't run at consistent mph/rpm for longer than 5-10 minutes at a time, etc, etc.

I'm at almost 14k now, and yeah...I've hit redline quite a few times since then.

Don't bang it off the rev limiter, ride or dump the clutch or try to chirp tires for the first 1k miles and you should be fine.

HAHAHA!

When i got my 86 on the 20th of March, i drove it carefully for the first 15 mins, letting it fully warm up. I stopped at the lights, before the ramp going on the highway. I reved to 5k, dumped the clutch, the tires chirped, redlined 1st gear and 2nd gear. Couldn't resist. On that day, i redlined at least a dozen times.

My girlfriend's 86 was broken in to the factory manual. She put the rev limiter at 4k. And would always vary speeds. Her 86 doesnt feel as fast as mine. When i shift, i have that lurch forward in 1-2, 2-3. Hers doesn't unless you dump the clutch. Both still stock.

Now i have AFE intake and perrin pulley on it. And it is actually faster than hers. When she uses my car for a quick drag, with me in hers, she will almost always win.

I think most of us drove cautiously considering it was a new car and you have to learn where the tires, corners, gear changes are but if there's someone who didn't have a high shift (either due to late shifting or the thrill) then I'd be shocked. Everyone has cheated a little during that 1k miles.

Anyway I've heard it's better to vary the way you drive...some hard some easy, some cruise, some long-trips, lots of short trips. then once you reach 1k just drive in the style you usually would.

I just hope the 2-3 times that I did some funky thing while learning MT didn't mess anything up. Car runs like a dream still, so here's to hoping she took one for the team!

The only time I babied a car when I bought it, the car had lots of issues (not engine related) :)

I fully believe in driving a car like I normally would. I have done this with like 8 vehicles and never had any issues.

I found this to be an interesting read:
http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

My post from the stickied break in thread

On a fully instrumented bench the differences in break in can fairly easily be detectable. Poor break in will result in increased blow by gas results indicating poor sealing rings and potentially also increased oil consumption results (although so many things impact that it can be hard to isolate poor break in as a cause short of multiple tests and trending results). A typical good break in will normally have a few minutes being run at light throttle loads and low speeds to get everything warmed up. You'll then go into a standard break in pattern escalating rpm and loadings until you're at flat chat WOT. For a mass production engine you'd probably do that over an hour but for a development engine that may be as long as 10-24 hours to get as consistent results as possible

Obviously this is totally unrealistic on a public road. Therefore the instruction is to keep things low and gentle initially and then building up. In a perfect world that build up would include, after a few thousand miles, going balls to the wall to get maximum loading but again not necessarily something you want to insist someone does (look at some of the emotion in some of these posts when people think they've done something wrong).

I hate to bust a myth but most or almost all engines will not be factory broken in. Typically most engines will have been started for checking in the factory producing them. The bench won't be loaded, is unlikely to go above 3-4000rpm and will run for no longer than a minute or two. Some modern ones don't even fire the engines. They exist purely for noise checks, making sure the con-rods don't make a bid for freedom and that oil doesn't soak the floor first time the engine turns over. Once the engine is built into a car it'll be started and get a brief run on a rolling road but again no more than a minute or two although much more likely to go to red line in at least one gear. Then it's only delivery mileage on the car. That's driving to dispatch yard and on and off transporters. The Odometer will be connected at that point so you'll know the number of miles your car has done above that and its unlikely to be above say 6-10 miles (although I have known some get as high as maybe 30miles if some special check is carried out). Hardly run in!

That said the tolerances are significantly tighter meaning that early abuse is much less detectable by a customer and will have significantly lower impact. In summary RTFM and apply what it says
Don't get too paranoid about not being perfect though.

By the way I love the motorman website. One day I'm going to author a web site shouting the benefits of thinning the oil down with bleach or the power benefits of putting sugar in the petrol tank to see how often it gets quoted (I'd advise against both of those unless you want things to get expensive). I'll be generous and not call some of the things on there outright lies but he definitely misrepresents the truth meaning I can't trust anything posted on there.

Warmed up the car and then hit 4K rpm and no higher whenever I could safely do it during my break-in period. Did not hard launch or anything, just wound up the engine from a roll. Engine is not glazed with oil or leaking at all. did an oil change after the first 2000KM and winds up nicely to 7K rpm. I've not redlined or bounced it off the rev-limiter.

i drove my car like i stole it for like 3 months straight when i hit 400 miles. im at 5.5k miles now and its still running strong. lol.

I drove/drive mine like I stole it.

Maybe not every single shift or stop/start but guaranteed every time I get in it going from one place to the other I get the rpm's above 6k at least one time.

I have never broke in a vehicle I have owned (bought first new vehicle in 99) and have never had a single problem. I had a Mazda 3 back the first year they came out and I drove that think at the redline damn near the entire time I owned it. Got rid of it at 100k miles and never had one single iota of trouble with it nor did it burn/consume oil. (man that was a fun little 170hp car!).

I distinctly remember doing donuts on my FR-S test drive with the needle pegged, and my engine hasn't grenaded yet, and doesn't use any oil.
Its far more important to make sure you engine is fully up to temperature before beating on it then it is to worry about driving like a granny for the first 1000 miles.

I retired my last car of 10yrs at 125k miles, and never had a drop of oil consumption. I owned it since it had 3 miles on the odo, and I was doing redline shifts on the dealer lot before I even bought the car (no seriously, the crazy salesperson had me doing laps in their back lot. No better way to convince an 18yr old kid to buy a car).


But I guess peace of mind is worth more than any engine, so if it makes you feel better to deny the enjoyment your new car provides, go ahead and take it easy for the first 1k.
But ask yourself this...on your wedding night would you deny yourself sex because of some supposed break in period? Hell no, you'd bang like bunnies, everyone would. A new car purchase is no different...well, there's no penetration :p (unless you got screwed by the dealer.)

So give yourself something to remember about that special day, and go write your name on the pavement of some large open parking lot. Your car will thank you...tires may hate you, but the rest of the car will thank you.

Haha strong post! :bow::bow::bow:

my first day with my car i took it to Toyo Tires turn pike and tried to keep up with my buddies in a few r35s and r32s. car runs great, turns out its not that fast though :P. only thing i can say is that the TRD brake pads DEFINITELY need to be bedded in. kinda forgot about that little step and almost had to pay forbody repairs on an 86 and r35.

Does changing exhaust and intake during break in period will be bad idea?
 

Does changing exhaust and intake during break in period will be bad idea?

What will be the problem?

Absolutely not a problem.