How important is break in ?
 

Hi all
Manual says 1200 miles, no WOT, stay under 4K rpm. I m following thoses rules but at my current paste, i ll be able to enjoy this car in 3 months.

What are the impact of not following thoses rules once in a while?

Probably nothing, but possibly something. Why risk engine damage? Patients Danielson.

Take it easy, what's the rush. Nice and gently for the first 1000-1500 km. Once you hit 1k, change the oil and filter.

well I never paid attention to that, put 400 miles on in 3 days and on Sunday my son and I autocross the car. That was Oct 2011, and I have had no problems...
Kinda hard to follow rules, for the car likes to run

rental cars are proof

With modern materials and construction, 400-500 miles is usually enough nowadays. I like to change my oil about the same time (see Nixin's comment above).

Just keep it a bit easy on the first 500. Within those any major problem with the engine or car should have popped up.
After that you can give it a little sometimes and use gear 2 and 3 a bit. (after the engine (oil) has warmed up of course)
I only avoided holding the revs above 4k.

:iagree::iagree:

I know this for a fact. I bought a used 6-month old Mustang back in 2010 that was previously a rental car. I can guarantee that no break-in was performed. It has been the most reliable car I've ever owned. The engine runs like a top and consumes no oil between oil changes. I now have 130k kms.

Keep in mind that if break-in was indeed very important, manufacturers would program it into the car's ECU restricting rpm for the break-in mileage and requiring an oil and filter change right after.

I'm not saying it isn't a good practice to allow a break-in period, but i don't believe it is vital for reliability/longevity of the engine in modern cars.

I rent cars every week and often they are still in the break-in period. I would never, ever buy a used rental car that I once drove.

:rofl2:

I tend to drive casually for 500 miles or so and then slowly ramp up the crazy. In over 30 years of new cars, this has worked out fine.

I was doing the occasional hard 0-60 pull at ~600 miles in my 2016, for example.

The biggest thing I know of is not holding a set RPM for any of the first thousand miles or so... No long highways drives using cruise control. You don't want anything in there to establish a wear pattern.

From the factory the car will want an oil change at around 2000 miles.

And yes, some engines like Chrysler's pretty amazing Pentastar have ECUs programmed to only allow the engine to make like 70% of max and the A/Ts shift early for the 1000 miles.

I m following the manual instructions, but sometimes, i feel the needs to have fun a bit. I remember the Z i test drove (not the one i bought), it had 200 miles on it and i did a couple WOT to the red line with it and the young saleman beside me.

So i can imagine how thoses 200 miles were done :rolleyes:

I look at it this way. Ferraris, which supposedly have some of the more delicate engines out there, take their finished production cars directly to the track once they come off the assembly line.

Its kinda like being a smoker....you don't see it now but you will later....

Facts:
1. Average driver does 12 to 15k miles
2. Average driver sells their car every 3 to 5 years
3. Average human doesn't care about anyone but themselves (unfortunate) and their family..

If your the average driver/person stop waiting and get on it...(you will never see the effects) ....if you plan on keeping the car for longer than the average, or you care about the car and the poor sap who will buy the car....then wait until after the break in to led foot it.

I think it is also a liability perception thing... by telling you to baby your new car by keeping your speed down, they are giving you a lot of time to figure out how the new car handles.
There would be more accidents if people just hopped into a high-powered car and wrapped it around a pole 10 minutes later cuz they didn't know how to control it. Wouldn't look good for the brand.

Engine maybe not so much but the clutch, pads and rotors need to be broken in

I like the smoking analogy! Lots of good info in this thread.

Engine break in will never be a settled topic. Everyone has their opinion, and none of them are proveable since the ill effects of an improper break in take so long to show up. It's right up there with "what's the best type of oil" threads. :rofl2:

By a good seasoned driver.. ur car is toast

What counts as seasoned? I mean you could drive for 20 years be good bt don't know manual.... and then clutch dump and score the crap out of the plates ahhaha

OR be like me.... hot runs and then hose down my rotors to wash my rims. Yep. Very sure that's how I warped my rotors

are u u in both cases? :ugh:


sorry to hear about ur brakes.. ive never had dat happen on any of my cars ive owned..

Proper break in is only required, if you can't lie to your Nissan Tech during the warranty period! ;)

Doesn't the ECU track nearly everything anyways? I always thought it logged the number of full throttle applications + duration, or is that ONLY prior to crashing into a concrete barrier?

Only driver for 12 lol but yea I fkd up my rotors big time doing it a few times. Expensive lessons but so far have put another 30k on the car since that issue and rotors are still good.

I think it's on the higher super cars for performance tracking. I think McClaren or porche did that to the competitors and left a note cause they baught a car and they saw it was put on a test track

Just my opinion and my way of thinking but if it wasn't important, they probably wouldn't say anything about it? It's not that long anyways, i'd just follow the break in period.

You are probably thinking of the Event Data Recorder. What it records and how long it keeps it is up to the manufacturer (unless the law has changed recently). The FSM may have info on how Nissan does it with the 370Z.

That article gets trotted out every time this conversation comes up. The guy provides next to no evidence, has a website that looks like a bad myspace page and interrupts his article multiple times to try to get you to look at a list of his 1000 favorite music videos. He very well may be right, but he's not helping his credibility with his presentation.

The PCM is monitors all kinds of things while the engine is running and even when not running. Things like fuel rail pressure, engine coolant temperature, ect. For instance when a car over heats a DTC is set and the check engine light comes on. Then when I scan the vehicle, freeze frame data will also be present which shows me the temperature of the coolant.

Use it an excuse to take a road trip.
Just make sure youve hit the break in period before your way back home. Get an oil change, then smash it with all the built up excitement all the way home!

No, but really, in my opinion I would follow the protocol due to it being new. and I wouldnt want to put all that money down if something funky goes wrong and warranty doesnt cover.

Im that guy that gets a used car/bike w/ little prev owners that has babied it (from the looks, carfax etx) and smash it down the road as i drive away with a smile.


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I personally believe in hard brake in's for my motorcycles
Just drive it hard(or how you normally would) without keeping it at the same rpm's for extended amounts of time (NO HIGHWAY)

Soft brake in's are also good. just not for me

Edit:Added

For example i'm pretty sure lamborghini or ferrari? Does a hard brake in for every car on a track.
They can't tell you to do that in a manual booklet or people would get injured and or die.

I drove my winter beater like a rented mule from day one off the dealership's lot. Burnouts from every stop. It's been 7 years and 118,000 mi, and the thing doesn't lose a drop of oil, and has required zero expenditures outside of regular maintenance.

Well, this seems like a good chance to pad my post count :postwhore:

The only thing you really need to do is avoid cruising at the same RPMs for continuous periods of time. This means no cruise control and constantly varying your speed and/or RPMs during highway cruising.

Ideally no WOT or redlining before ~500 miles or so. But it probably won't be catastrophic if you do. I routinely ran the RPMs up to 5500 RPMs in every gear I could during the break-in period. I ran them up gradually like on a dyno though - not full throttle like a drag strip. She still runs like a top 92K miles later :driving:

Did some web searching and came up with zero hard data. Lots of opinions; no data.

Most people seem to agree that it's all about sealing the rings. Few agree on how to properly accomplish that.

Based on the stories I read, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference with a decent, modern engine. Found several stories of people that took their cars from the showroom to the drag strip with no apparent problems. I wouldn't recommend doing that but it doesn't seem to be a big no-no nowadays.

YMMV

At least with oil, one can find UOAs and such to back up claims. ;)

Broke in my 350Z's VQ per the owner's manual.

I then raced the crap out of it for 100k miles with no issues. (no issues with the motor)

I was really big on maintenance, but that motor spent most of its life in the top half of the tach after break-in.