Distance Drive for New Car

[anteater86]

Originally Posted by Fish

I took mine to Vegas with 91 miles on it. lol

Likely doing the same thing.. hope to pick mine up today or tomorrow and then head to Vegas on Thursday.

I'm weary about the "break-in" but I'll just vary speeds and throttle input. Easy to do on the wide-open 15 N lol

[SkullWorks]

heck I bought mine 1200 miles from home and drove it back.

I do not agree with any of the break in soft techniques, never have, they actually contradict everything that has ever made sense about break in.

You can search for break in threads if you want to see the fight that ensues over that train of thought though.

FWIW we have had 3 frs/brz on the Dyno at SR motorcars, and my dyno runs read higher by 3-6 hp, whatever that is worth, my hard as hell break in didn't hurt the motor that's for sure and it hasn't burned any oil...unlike alot of the soft break-in cars.


car currently has 4000 miles, none of them easy.

[Chuynh207]

I put on 2,000 miles on my FR-S within two weeks. Drove 800 miles within a matter of several days, car seems to be functioning perfectly fine even though I didn't break it in "properly"

[kendalldwhite]

I drove 4 miles to pick mine up not far at all but also i waited 5 weeks

[Grishbok]

you can feel the engine start to awaken after about 600 miles or so. Subaru recomends keeping varying load, rpms on the motor for 1k miles. This is largely a precautionary measure, not a nescessity, and also a countermeasure to the influx of complaints new car buyers flood them with while the throttle response is still slow. A new car takes a good amount of duty cycles to come together and really get some heat into those rings. Tolerances on modern engines do not require this period, but it is recomended.

[BlaineWasHere]

Originally Posted by mkaresh

I'm confused by this. 500-600 miles? This would take about ten hours and 20+ gallons of gas.

It uses a lot less gas when it's not in the chassis as the load is way less. The numbers I pulled are not exact, but something extremely similar to this happens with 99% of production cars. They test the motor at every RPM at different loads then put it into the chassis test it in every gear. Still confused?

The main point is your motor has had a fair amount of usage before the ODO is ever active.

[Ms. FR-S]

...I took mine to autocross the day after I bought it with 143 miles on it. Oops.

[Grishbok]

jeesus, how slow were your times with that 20 second throttle response delay?

[pinoyplaya]

CRAP! I went above 4k, maybe up to 5k or 6k and I've only got less than 500 miles on the car.

Is my car dead now?

[Grishbok]

Originally Posted by pinoyplaya

CRAP! I went above 4k, maybe up to 5k or 6k and I've only got less than 500 miles on the car.

Is my car dead now?

rofl, no. If it were that big a deal, they would have it rev-limited at 4k until you reach 1k miles. Actually, getting it nice and hot at least once or twice during break in is preferable to seat the rings properly.

[pinoyplaya]

Originally Posted by Grishbok

rofl, no. If it were that big a deal, they would have it rev-limited at 4k until you reach 1k miles. Actually, getting it nice and hot at least once or twice during break in is preferable to seat the rings properly.

Its just so hard to resist going beyond 4k

Also, question.... when shifting, do you apply gas prior to releasing the clutch to get a smooth shift? I feel like my shifts are sometimes rocky, its smooth when I apply gas then release the clutch but I feel like Im burning gas that way.... or am I?

And downshifting... ugh, I hate it.... the car jerks, Im doing it all wrong

I havent driven a stick in a 6 years. It feels different. Maybe the car has too much power for me

[Grishbok]

when shifting, down or up, you want your rpm's to match the rpm's of the gear your going in to. Watch your tachometer when you shift and youll see if the engine is spinning at a different rate than your transmission. If you get it right, youll feel the clutch engage in the pedal, a solid connection, then more gas and go. The idea is to be as smooth as possible, spending the least amount of time shifting. You lose a lot of track time just by shifting so you want to be as fast as possible, as smooth as possible. If it isnt smooth, you upset the chassis and lose time.

when downshifting, you want to clutch in, then blip the accelerator to increase the rpm's to match the gear your going in to. If your going 60mph in 5th @ 3,000 rpms, and want to shift into 3rd to make a pass, you clutch in, hit the accelerator to 5000rpm's (estimated) then clutch out, applying more gas as the clutch pedal is released. (when you get this down, you can do a heel-toe, pressing the brake with your right foot as you approach a turn while at the same time, swinging your heel over to blip the accelerator to match the rpms for the gear your going to downshift into, saving tons of time)

When upshifting, this is less evident, but the rpm's fall rapidly, you want to again, ensure your rpms are at the right speed for the gear, so if your in 2nd and your at 4500rpms, and you are going to shift into third: clutch in, youll see the rpms fall, you want to try to release the clutch at 2500rpms (estimate). If you shift while watching the tachometer, when you release the clutch, youll see your tach quickly "jump" to the right rpm if you get it wrong. That will tell you if your rpm match it too high or low for the gear.