I didn't mean to imply that there's anything special about the 5500 miles mark. It's just where I made the switch. I did my first oil change at 1800 miles, putting Nissan's Ester oil back in. At 5500 miles I just figured it was close enough to 3000 miles since my last oil change, plus it was a nice even number and it was also a good time to put my oil cooler on. So that's when I switched over to synthetic. Like David said, most people recommend making the switch somewhere between 3-10k. I've always considered waiting until after the first 5k miles to be a good rule of thumb, just to be on the safe side. But it's just a personal thing. It's not like I have some scientific study pointing to 5k as the magic threshold or anything like that.

Tons of BS in this thread, that's for sure! There is absolutely NO WAY an engine would be run up to redline on the test bench. And the only manufacturer that puts an engine on a dyno at the factory is Porsche. All oil is drained from the engine on the test bench at the factory, after the initial test run. In the case of Nissan for the VQ, it is then refilled with Nissan Ester Oil. Why? Because this engine runs hot, period.

Here's a nice link, read it and stop the madness!

Stealth 316 - Engine Break-In :tiphat:

good info man ^^^^

I changed mine out at 1200 from whatever the factory put in to Mobil1 and the larger version of the OEM oil filter (it's slightly longer, same diameter) - I'll change it out again in spring, when I do all my vehicles annually.

I'll put in the regular Mobil1 oil again for next year, and change it out in the fall or when I hit around 3K more than whatever it is in spring, then after that I'll probably move to the 7500mile-rated Mobil1 oil and change it annually.

My Civic, I think, came with Mobil1 factory-filled. I changed it out at 5K a couple times, then moved to Mobil1 15K oil. Next interval is at 75K. I'll probably be a bit late, and just change it in March, since it's at 70K now. I checked the oil, and it's fine. Engine holds 3 quarts...so if it's a quart low - that's really bad!

I think the article as written (and others that recommend break-in by varying engine speed) are taking into account the pressures being applied to the rings, pistons, cylinder walls and valves.

Cars typically "burn" oil due to bad valve seals - ie, oil drops down into the combusion chamber (or out the exhaust). If you have bad rings, you don't burn oil, you lose compression. There's no a whole lot you can do at break in to prevent your rings from failing and/or wearing out. It's part of the lifecycle of the engine. Same in a sense with valve stem seals - eventually they can wear out.

Whether you vary your engine speed or not during break-in makes zero difference to the part. It has a limited number of cycles it can sustain before degradation, provided there is adequate lubrication.


One other thing, redline is a number. Case and point - same engine, same internals, and the Nizmo has a higher redline. "staying away from redline" is a load of BS. It makes no real difference to the engine how fast you run it, the same parts are moving, just faster. Sure there are physical loads that are different, however, those loads are "within spec" - it's like saying that a part won't surive because you hit redline, or that you will drastically reduce the longevity of your engine because you bounced the needle when the car only had 200 miles on it...

My uncle used to drag race one of his old cars and would wind the engine up to 12K - this car was bone stock, I think it was a mustang, but I'd have to check. He did that until he blew the flywheel out of it, which was a significant number of races later.

I doubt very seriously that your uncle was winding his mustang engine to 12k!Never happen in the real world!

I'll check w/ my Dad on the story on which car it was, the year, the engine size and whatever else he can remember.

My dad, I think, at the time had a 68 or 69 396 Camaro, and I think my uncle's engine was under 300ci...283 sounds right, but that's a Chevy engine...like I said, I'll have to check.

Expanding the horizon of possibilities/probabilities: My wife had a girlfriend who, back in the '70s used to own a Plymouth Cricket (I believe that was a rebadged Mitsubishi vehicle). Well, she once came to visit with us and, talking about how really good her Cricket had turned out, I made a comment about the importance of oil changes according to the schedule in the Owner's Manual...The look on her face told a story! She told me that, in the 3 or 4 YEARS she had owned that car, she had NEVER done "such thing"! I warned her about how crucial the procedure is, and she commented that, since she was divorced, she wasn't "gonna worry about it". As far as I know, for as long as my wife and her were friends, she never complained that the car ever failed her in any way! On the other hand, I've heard of dudes who do oil changes every 3,000k or even 1,500k!, and their cars turn out lemmons. The truth of the matter is that every car is different, and one never knows how it's gonna turn out to be. According to reliability stats', Toyota, Honda, Subaru and Nissan are the most reliable makes, so I've been buying Nissan for years (6 cars, so far), and doing oil changes every 7,500k with Mobil 1 5W30 or 10W30, with no bad results at all. I'm sticking with that plan till it proves to be wrong!

I read on another forum somewhere that someone had a truck with something like 120K miles on it, never once changed the oil.

Doesn't mean it's true or not, but, there are people out there that probably have done just that - absolutely no maintenance short of putting on cheap tires when the ones they have wear out, and putting gas in the tank.

As for reliability, when it comes time to send the Civic out to pasture, I'm thinking I'll look at Nissan pretty hard...the Altima is not a bad looking car...

I had a friend with a Jag XK120 who did this...Owned it for 14 years and never changed the oil. Since it had a big sump and leaked/burned at a pretty good rate it really didn't matter.. He always had a relatively fresh batch of oil in there.....:icon17:

In 1978 when synthetic oils first made an appearance, I put 4 quarts in my Fiat X1/9.
Next morning I went outside and all 4 quarts had leaked out through the gaskets. That was one of the problems when synthetics first came out, some cars couldn't handle it.

I change my oil every 7500k as well on my Acura and BMW. Never had any issues. However that is not something I'd be willing to risk on the VQ engine as it naturally likes to burn oil...at least in my experience. I did the change every 5k and lost anywhere from half to 1 quart every time.

^^^ thats insane...... if that happened to me i would be like.... wtf :eek2:

I think i think you mean physimabullshics

A note on honing: Engine bolcks are bored with indexable carbide boring tools. the finish is WAYYY smoother from this tool than the hones(a proper OEM machining center can achieve a 16 microinch finish on the bore) problem is it isn't perfectly round so manufacturers bust out the hone and get the bores to within .003-.005 of finish size. Now here's the important part after the rough hone they use a finish hone to smooth out the rough hones surface and clean up the walls of cylinders(you have to look through a stereoscope at hundreds of metal samples before you fully understand what i mean when i say that two parts can have identical surface roughness but be totally different). The goal of honing is to create the roughest finish possible while allowing the rings to move freely and seal effectively for the purpose of OIL RETENTION. You have an aluminum block and steel rings chief the rings "seat" in the cylinder walls kinda like breaking the tips off of all of the teeth on your file. the shavings in the oil are all alluminum. Magnetic drain plugs on our cars don't really do much because of this(they do pick up some stuff from the bearing to journal wear, oil pump gears, and the timing set though).

Oems that do use the factory fill of synthetic often use phosphorous and zinc loaded additives in that first batch of oil as well to ease break in. They tell you not to use it afterwards because it tends to have an effect on emissions over time. oil used to be loaded with it in order to lubricate the old flat tappet cams but that too has been cleaned up now to the point where if you own an old 60's era musclecar you should be running special oils or additives as they have been cleaned out of almost all oils on the market.

My '04.5 Touring Coupe's turned out to be one solid workhorse! No oil-consumption or high temp' issues, no feathering, no starting issues, no overheating issues. The only prob' has been with the doggone power window motors; I already installed a new one on the driver's side, and the passenger's side is already acting up! Then again, those are what I call "non-serious bugs", 'cause they won't leave you stranded at midnight on a rainy night. All in all, my 350Z's for keeps, until the Lord says differently! I'm staying with the 7,500k oil-change schedule; if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Greetings, dudes!