how do you guys drive your car?

[Books]

I babied mine up until 1k miles. Under 4k rpm, and (mostly) top speed of 60 on the highway. I did go up to (but never over) 70 a few times, but that was the highest I ever went. But I got a CEL/SL issue at 1500 miles. Got fixed in a week and so far running really strong.

[Sigh-on-Rice]

First 1k, I kept it under 4k and avoided freeway as much as possible.
Second 1k, I upped the RPM higher and higher slowly, but never WOT yet.
Third 1k, I WOT for about 5 times.
I'm at 3350 now.

I doubt the CEL and idle dip issues have anything to do with how you treat the car since some people get it even before they get home for the first time.

[whaap]

Originally Posted by enjoi23

Most people are following it, but are they the ones still having problems, or is it the ones who went hard since day one?

I don't think you'll notice much difference till you get further into the life of the car. It might be ever so slight but various mechanical parts wear more when the car is "driven like you stole it" and over time various problems will develop.

[rapidcars]

Interesting that the ones that were broken in properly seem to be more likely to have the CEL issue. I know it's a small sample size right now but still.

[itisthumper]

The majority say they have no problems yet the majority says their engine chirps

Am I not getting something?

[hippari]

I've been driving like a douche from the day I got it, but I'm second owner. The first was some lady who apparently changed her mind and returned it because she decided she wanted automatic (or so the dealer says). She returned it at 400ish miles and I put it at 13xx in the few weeks I've had it.

Never knew about the break in thing till I started lurking ft86 club outside of the frs/brz picture subforums by witch point I was already past 1000. The car's too much damn fun after 5k, but for what it's worth the car's still running like a million bucks. (knock on a nardi) Not that I'd notice since my old miata was such a loud, wonderful cacophony of malfunction, though.

[Texas BRZ]

Kept my RPM's at or below 3,500 for the first 100-300 miles, and then worked my way up to 4k-4,500 RPM's for the 300-700 mile mark, and then approached around 5k RPM's as I came closer to 1k miles on the car. Varied the RPM's if I did any highway driving. 2-3 runs to redline during the break-in period, but I just couldn't hold myself back there.

Just passed 5k miles on my FR-S this morning. 4 track days on the car, and plenty more to come. Lots of daily driving on the car too.

Thankfully, no major problems... Yet.

[civicdrivr]

I posted this in another thread:

Originally Posted by civicdrivr

Heres my break in procedure:

-No constant speeds
-No cruise control
-No WOT shifts (youre breaking in a clutch at the same time....)
-Slowly increase you revs as you put on the miles.

Im at 7xx miles on my FR-S right now and Im revving it up to ~6k rpm every now and then, just to build some heat in the motor. Im also giving it ~80% throttle here and threre to put some load on the engine.

I didnt rev past 4k rpm for the first 200 miles or so. But I would apply load to the engine, about 50% throttle. From ~200 miles up to 400, I would rev to 4500, 400-500miles was 5k, 5-600 was 5500rpm, and so on. Im slowly increasing the throttle input as the miles add up as well. By 1000miles, I should be bringing it to or at least near redline.

Thats my break in, not overly harsh nor "grandma-ish"

Currently over 13k miles and no issues or oil consumption.