Break in Period

[Condor1970]

Proof? I thought only the high end manufacturers put every car on a dyno.

I've been searching for the YouTube video that shows the final inspection after they do the headlight and front alignment at the factory. It used to be posted about a year ago when I was doing research on it before buying one.

The final QA inspection consists a full visual and test of all components electronic and mechanical. Then the car gets one run up on a dyno, and one or two laps around a small track to check proper steering and suspension behavior. At the end of the lap, it then gets parked in the main lot ready for shipping. Driving the car onto and off the shipping truck is only a few hundred feet. So, if you're wondering, it's why every brand new Mustang that shows up on the truck at the dealer, already has about 4-6 miles on it.

They actually do this for most cars now. Even the cheap ones.

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[Idaho2018GTPremium]

I've been searching for the YouTube video that shows the final inspection after they do the headlight and front alignment at the factory. It used to be posted about a year ago when I was doing research on it before buying one.

The final QA inspection consists a full visual and test of all components electronic and mechanical. Then the car gets one run up on a dyno, and one or two laps around a small track to check proper steering and suspension behavior. At the end of the lap, it then gets parked in the main lot ready for shipping. Driving the car onto and off the shipping truck is only a few hundred feet. So, if you're wondering, it's why every brand new Mustang that shows up on the truck at the dealer, already has about 4-6 miles on it.

They actually do this for most cars now. Even the cheap ones.

That's cool to know. I had no idea they did the dyno and short track test (I'm sure they aren't abusing the car, but a mild track check). I'm not surprised all the electronics and other mechanical items get checked.

 

[Zooks527]

I'm at 330 miles on my 19GT and I've been pretty much following the manual which is basically the same thing I've done on all the other new cars I've broken in over the years. Gentle driving till the temps come up, then: keep the rev's down below 5k, don't bog the engine, lot's of local driving to vary speeds, as little steady state freeway as possible, and keep it under 60mph. So mostly normal driving mode, then usually on my way home when it's well warmed up I'll put it in sport mode which is where I'll end up always driving it once I hit 1k. I'm in Central Jersey and yeah, between the crazy weather and deer, I think the break in will finish by the Spring which sucks since I daily an older Jeep.

We did European Delivery when I bought my first BMW. At the time, BMW USA was saying to keep it under 100 mph for the first 400 miles. When the factory rep was giving me the last bit of the new car introduction, she said "Oh, and try to stay under 4000 RPM for the first 400 miles or so." Knowing we had multiple stretches of autobahn on our planned trip, I asked, "Don't I have to stay under 100 mph as well?" and watched her smile and move on to the next topic.

Turns out 4000 RPM at the time was around 125 mph. Kept the car for 132,000 miles and it was a champ.

 

[marks]

Obviously there is a running/break in period, usually about a 1000 miles

 

[Kennyboy]

good I only have 200 miles to go...........

 

[Norm Peterson]

Here we go again...

You not only break in the motor but the transmission and the rear differential as well as the brakes and steering and like every moving part down to the u-joints. Drive it like you stole it creates all sorts of unusual wear patterns right from the get go on all these parts. Unless you are racing it out of the box I strongly suggest you take it easy on the car. These are mass produced cars with thousands of parts that have to mate properly to ensure a trouble free driving experience.

Most people don't realize what's going on during the 'break-in' process. Best description I can give is that it's a sort of final polishing of mating parts to each other by each other. Which happens to generate extra heat (kind of like running the car harder than it feels like from the driver's seat).

Most people haven't ever assembled engines from brand-new parts still in their boxes either, let alone from a pile of boxed parts that included file-fit rings.

Bet they've never touched a differential cover after the first 25 - 50 miles of driving on new gears either.


Norm

 

[sKyZ]

You can either follow the manual, written by the engineers and company that developed and tested the engine to last as long as possible which allows them to earn more money by avoiding recalls.

OR

You can listen to a bunch of drunk fools on the internet.

 

[DLW]

Just in case it was missed earlier..

Breaking In

• DLW
• Jan 1, 2019

 

[VooDooDaddy]

My break-in method:

1. Pick it up from the dealer.

2. Start it and let the engine oil, transmission fluid/oil, and coolant get up to normal operating temperature.

3. Find a nearby area with little to no traffic; do the equivalent of ten, full-throttle, to-redline, 1/4 mile runs.

4. Drive home, let the car cool down, then change the engine oil/filter. Optional: change the transmission/differential fluid.

Break-in is now complete!

 

[Condor1970]

My break-in method:

1. Pick it up from the dealer.

2. Start it and let the engine oil, transmission fluid/oil, and coolant get up to normal operating temperature.

3. Find a nearby area with little to no traffic; do the equivalent of ten, full-throttle, to-redline, 1/4 mile runs.

4. Drive home, let the car cool down, then change the engine oil/filter. Optional: change the transmission/differential fluid.

Break-in is now complete!

And how long do you keep your cars before trade in?

 

[Silver Bullitt]

I've been searching for the YouTube video that shows the final inspection after they do the headlight and front alignment at the factory. It used to be posted about a year ago when I was doing research on it before buying one.

The final QA inspection consists a full visual and test of all components electronic and mechanical. Then the car gets one run up on a dyno, and one or two laps around a small track to check proper steering and suspension behavior. At the end of the lap, it then gets parked in the main lot ready for shipping. Driving the car onto and off the shipping truck is only a few hundred feet. So, if you're wondering, it's why every brand new Mustang that shows up on the truck at the dealer, already has about 4-6 miles on it.

They actually do this for most cars now. Even the cheap ones.

My car had 3.8 miles on it when I picked it up which included about 1 1/2 miles round trip to the Quik Trip by the dealership to fill the tank. Considering driving off the line to the holding area, loading on the train, unloading off the train to the holding lot (which I've observed since its less than 1/2 mile from my work), loading on the hauler, unloading at the dealer, pulling it through the dealership to swap my tires, parking it again, then pulling it back around for pdi, and finally to pull it up for final inspection and delivery, I suppose it's possible it could have seen one dyno run, but I don't see how it could have seen any track time unless that's a mighty close and short track.

 

[VooDooDaddy]

And how long do you keep your cars before trade in?

Well, my current DD I've had since March 2011. It now has 153,000+ miles on it. Not a single problem with it except for a faulty H2O pump that was changed under warranty at 30,000 miles. Doesn't leak, smoke, or burn a drop of oil. I change it every 5,000 miles.

Prior to that I had a DD for 11 years with 218,000 miles on it that was still running strong when I sold it. Same break-in procedure as quoted above.

My 2016 GT has about 5,500 miles on it. Same as above, except not one mechanical problem. NONE

 

[Dfeeds]

Like has been said; the break in is for the entire car, not just the engine. I'm going to touch base on a few points here. There's also a thread on BITOG where a GM engineer chimes in on the matter with some interesting insight. Unfortunately I don't have it bookmarked on my phone so I'll link it when I get home from work.

So, for the 1000 miles. Everything on the car needs to wear into each other. Clutch, flywheel, transmission gears , synchronizers, rear diff gears, suspension, brakes, etc. It all wears in at different rates depending on many variables (ambient temp, road quality, stop and go vs expressway miles, etc). How much is necessary to seat the piston rings is heavily debated, and the new PTWA liners add yet another variable to that debate. Also, I want to touch on the "drive it like you stole it from the lot," thing. Please don't do this unless you took the car on a good 20 to 30 min test drive first. The oil won't be up to operating temp and this will cause harm. Redlining the engine won't necessarily cause any harm, but doing so after a cold start will. At the other extreme, babying the car isn't good for it either. "Babying" being subjective so I'll use the term as how my friends would (shifting and keeping engine speed at or below 2k rpms). This will lug the engine (especially in high gear or going up a hill), and that's not good for it either. We're also dealing with a lot of aluminum, which has a bit of expansion and contraction during heat cycles. There's a reason why you're never supposed to over torque things like aluminum intake manifold bolts and lug nuts on aluminum rims, and then you're supposed to go back to retorque everything after a few trips. So one of the best things you can do is hit that 1000 miles by exposing the engine to several different thermal cycles (as opposed to one straight shot which I've read some people do). This includes varying the engine speed to fluctuate the temps, as well. Just, and I stress, make sure the oil is up to temp if you can't resist the urge to get on it. Fortunately we have an oil temp gauge installed because 10 qts of oil will take its sweet time warming up. Your normal temp gauge will read warm well before your oil is.

 

[nastang87xx]

I autocrossed my car at 200 miles. The first 200 I was driving normally as if nothing were going on. 16,000 miles later everything is running peachy and feels great.

 

[NoVaGT]

Every time someone here says their Coyote is an oil-burner, I ask how they broke their engine in.

And every time they say they babied it, like the manual said to.

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