My engineer neighbor's approach to oil change breaking in his truck ?

A friend and neighbor, who is a retired engineer and has knowledge and experience with things mechanical, including cars, told me just now that he broke in his 1999 Ford 150 Lightning truck by changing the original factory oil at 1000 miles and then again at 2500 and then at

5000 and has kept to 5K, with synthetic, for changes since.

I know that engines are machined to greater tolerances than those of

20 years ago, which then included a free dealer oil change at 500 miles to flush out the metal filings etc, but would you agree that it makes sense to use a break in sequence, such as this, at this time, with our new Toyota 4Runner - rather than the published approach, which is to just do nothing until 5k miles and then change to Synthetic, if I wished to ?

I don't mind the extra expense, even the cost of synthetic, and filter changes, in exchange for any benefits that breaking in in a preferable way would provide, if they so exist. It is possible that such a break in sequence would be a bit too daunting or complex for non machine minded consumers and Toyota, although it might so prefer it this way, just leaves the change at 5K miles to simplify things.

Thanks,

Forrest

Reply to
Forrest
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An American built, supercharged screamer like that Lightning, I could justify the extra cost/effort, just for piece of mind. The engine he has is known for oil control problems with higher mileage in naturally aspirated form, the supercharger's additional loading only exacerbates the problem...so yeah, if it was me, no amount of caution would be too much...with the standard Japanese worker bee engine, no need...just do you oil changes when reccommended, and you'll be fine.

If you operate in normal conditions and do your service on time, synthetic doesn't really have a lot of tangible benefits. it is nice, however, to have some extra safety margin knowing that if you go over interval for a service, it's ok, or if you overheat, the oil isn't going to turn into plastic, etc...just depends on your comfort level...I find semi-syn blends to be a great alternative. Flow nice in the cold, comes out almost as clear as it went in, etc. Price is very likeable...

Reply to
jeffcoslacker

A lot of yes/no regarding use of synthetic oil, so it a hard call. But, I would foolow your friend's thinking by changing oil and filter at 1K,

2.5K, and again at 5K. It not expensive [meaning the oil changes], and they get rid of any flotsam and jetsam created by a new engine break-in period.
Reply to
Knifeblade_03

You wont get a consensus on this board when lubrication matters are the topic. We all have our habits and beliefs, and - no matter what anyone else says - you are pretty much on your own when it comes to oil change protocol.

I prefer to err on the side of over fastidiousness.

Reply to
<HLS

Used to be there was a lot. Now there's none...nothing an oil filter can't deal with anyway. Back in the day, real fine finishing machining wasn't fast enough for production vehicles, and the final finish was achieved through friction, the main area being cylinder wall to ring seating...and other direct contact areas like pushrod to rocker contact and lifter/cam...

But the surface prep on parts now is so good, usually the parts' surface is even better when new and unrun than it would be after a run-in period...therefore, no debris generated...techniques for controlling cleanliness of the assembly areas are also much improved...

Had a friend buy a Civic Si a couple of years ago, and he was wondering the same thing, and was told by the service dept to run it normal for

500 miles and then drive it like you stole it..and go with the printed reccommendations for oil change intervals... 74,000 miles of his daily abuse, and it still uses less than 1/2 quart between changes, same as when it was new.
Reply to
jeffcoslacker

I think your friend did everything possible to insure that the engine will have a long life. 5K increments for oil changes is reasonable. Hopefully he is as punctual in flushing all the other fluids in the vehicle.

The tolerances are probably tighter if anything...

Contamination from the manufacturing process hasn't disappeared.

, such as this, at this time,

It is probably worthwhile extra insurance that doesn't cost much over the life of the car.

Toyota like all car companies tries to reach a balance between cost of maintenance and cost of repairs. The improved quality of lubricants combined with notable improvements in engine technology have allowed some car manufacturers to extend oil change schedules without having a notable impact on engine wear. It is non unusual to see cars run for

300,000 miules with no major repairs. Thirty years ago 100,000 miles was the benchmark.

The maintenance schedules are to some extent influenced by the widely publicized cost-of-annual-maintenance data. Some car companies carry extended maintenance schedules to what I would call an extreme to keep those numbers down.

Good questions.

Reply to
John S.

Actually, they're not. Most of the critical engine clearance specifications (piston-to-wall, ring gap, bearing clearnace) for a 1966 engine are essentially identical to those of a 2006 engine. What has changed is twofold:

1) quality of OIL is vastly improved and continually improving. 2) consistency of assembly- IOW, its easier for a manufacturer to hit the specifications right on the mark on EVERY engine that rolls off the line these days.

For what its worth, though, I break in all new engines (whether just purchased or a freshly rebuilt 1966 engine) pretty much exactly the way your neighbor did. If its a truly freshly-assembled engine that I've put together and has never been run at all before, I do the first oil change after one *hour* of break-in time, believe it or not, to get all the assembly lubricant and initial wear products out. Then 500 miles, then

1000, then 2500-3000, then normal oil changes. It may not be a significant benefit, but it definitely cannot hurt. Given the amount of visible metal in the oil that comes out of any freshly assembled engine (including 2006 engines) I would AT LEAST change the filter after a few hundred miles on any new car.
Reply to
Steve

I haven't observed any difference in the past 40 years or so. Rings seating will ALWAYS generate about the same amount of fluff, and if you do NOT get that fluff, then the rings aren't seating as they need to and the engine will be a chronic oil-burner. There should be minimal-to-no material shed from bearings during breakin, none from a roller cam, and only a slight amount from a slider cam. Its really the ring fluff that I like to get out of the system. Yes, the filter catches it, but a filter failure (they do happen!) can dump it all right back in. Better safe than sorry.

nothing an oil filter

I think you grossly under-estimate the precision of older engines. A rougher cylinder wall finish was specified with bare iron rings, yes, but it was NOT expected to "finish itself" on breakin. That rougher finish was just required for oil retention with bare iron rings, and stayed there through the life of the engine. Chrome finished rings require a much smoother surface, but the total amount of material shed during breakin is basically the same.

Half a quart between changes is pretty excessive, especially for a

4-cylinder. My last "brand new" engine (1993 Chrysler 3.5L v6) burned less than a few ounces (not measurable on the dipstick) between changes from about 10,000 miles to 180,000 miles or so. Now at a little over 240,000 miles, its crept up to about a quart to a quart and a half every 7000 miles (the change interval with Mobil-1). Some of that is leakage from valve cover and pan gaskets, though.
Reply to
Steve

Why do I bother getting involved in oil threads:banghead:

Eveybody has their own opinion, experiences, and nobody ever changes their mind based on what anybody says....:grinno:

For the record, if you aren't using over a quart every 1000 miles in a modern engine, you can't even qualify for excessive oil usage under most new car warrantees...less than half a quart in 5000 miles is well within acceptable for any motor...especially a tweaky 4 cylinder that gets wrung out to it's limits every time it's driven...

I don't recall seeing cylinder wall cross-hatching after an engine has run more than a few thousend miles, but if you say so...

I don't doubt your expertise...just doesn't jive with my own and my observations....and therein lies the futility of oil threads....:grinyes:

Reply to
jeffcoslacker

Won't hurt to follow the 'traditional' break in. 5000 miles between oil changes is a bit too much for my liking, synthetic or not, but as has been stated personal preference is just that . . . personal. That being said, many 'aftermarket extended service warranties' will require documentation of no more than 4000 mile oil change intervals. I like the synthetic blends for price/performance value. I drive Fords so I use Motorcraft oil and filters. The quality of the filter you use is the most important variable you control. Factory filters are always a good choice. For the most part avoid the 'Quickie Lube' brands of filters along with Fram. NAPA Gold filters are manufactured by WIX and are also a good choice. When I was involved with building professional racing engines the norm for start up was to use a series of aircraft screen filters in the oil return lines in addition to the normal filtering arrangement. These engines were assembled in a 'clean' environment with great care. The amount of 'trash' generated on initial run in is astounding. First one I saw I thought the engine had a serious malfunction. Doesn't take long for the trash to be filtered out and the oil stream clears up. When you buy a car from the dealer and run it out to the 7500 mile oil change you're gambling your filter has enough capacity to hold all the trash without bypassing and running the crap through your engine.

Forrest wrote:

Reply to
Lefty

Break in of a new vehicle should be done in accordance with the owner's manual. The factory lubricant ought to be left in there for as long as specified.

Sure! After all, who knows Toyotas better than your retired engineer neighbor?

Reply to
Kaz Kylheku

I can't imagine it would hurt. Alas, I don't have to break in a new engine just every day -- certainly not one of that caliber.

After break-in, during an engine's normal service lifetime, I change oil per the fouling characteristics and duty cycle of each car, not simply mileage. But I play that fairly conservatively too. My cleaner-running cars might hit five thousand mostly-highway miles between changes, but the ones that are harder on their oil, or rack up mostly city miles, get a change every three thousand. That often coincides with the severe-service schedule in the owner's manual.... and the description of severe service, closely read, applies to what most of us do...

If you really want to be scientific about these things, you can send off an oil sample for analysis, but the cost will buy you, what, two or three synthetic oil changes with quality filter? One could also do a magnifying-glass or microscope-aided augury of the oil filter, and look carefully at the (often magnetized) drain plug.

Cheers,

--Joe

Reply to
Ad absurdum per aspera

Myth. There is no "special break-in oil" from the factory any more. That truly is a relic of the 60s, when oils weren't nearly as good as they are now.

Reply to
Steve

Well, yeah. That's true :-)

That is certainly true, but its an absurdly lax criterion and certainly benefits the automakers. Back in the 70s, I considered any engine that burned a quart in a kilo-mile to be worn out and in need of an overhaul. A quart per thousand of *true* consumption (not leakage) will generally produce a nice blue haze out the exhaust of a car without a catalyst. Catalytic convertors hide many sins of sloppy engine design and assembly- just ask Ford owners about the early Modular v8s and oil consumption :-/

Again, as far back as the 60's and 70s, NOT seeing visible crosshatch all the way to the top of the cylinder was an indication of a completely worn-out engine. I've pulled a number of heads off 60's and 70's Mopar v8s with 150,000 miles or more and seen clear cross-hatch up and to the top of the cylinder. Same for modern engines, but if moly rings are used the cross-hatch will be much finer and will require the cylinder to be cleaned and then well-lighted in order to see it. If the cross-hatch is truly gone, the cylinder walls aren't retaining any oil and the rings are basically being lubricated by oil that is headed straight into the combustion chamber. It is true that in many ways 60s and 70s Mopars were way ahead of the others because their block metal had nickel and silicon content about the same as modern engine cylinder liners and was MUCH harder than contemporary Chevy engines. That metallurgy began in 1962- the older blocks are much softer. Olds, Buick, and Ford engines of the later 60s and 70s were close to the 62 and up Mopars in block hardness, but not quite the same.

Reply to
Steve

There is no need for a break in. Our fleet has many hundreds of vehicles and when new ones are sent out to replace old ones no one "breaks them in", they just drive em. There will always be a few that eventually have problems but it's usually blown head gaskets or the like, not problems that would be related to not being broken in. And a very large percentage of them run way past 100K on the original engines and transmissions and many are still in the fleet at over 200K on the original drive train. On my personal cars I do a change at

1000 miles when new. After that it's synthetic Mobil 1 and it's changed at 12K or 12 months. In our fleet it's regular dino changed at 6K or 6 months. On my last new car (99 Mustang GT) I pulled the factory oil filter apart to look at what it caught and there was nothing in it. On my beater truck I pulled a fram filter apart at 160K on the truck and 5k on the filter and there was nothing in that filter of note. The main reason I took that one apart was because of all the bad mouthing people do about fram filters and how they are made of cardboard. Guess what, the cardboard was just fine. And I'm sure it's not really cardboard, it's just not metal.

If anyone on here agrees with me I'll be so shocked I'll need defibrillation.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

You know, I was just thinking...it also shows that time more than mileage is a bigger factor in how much trouble a vehicle will give...while rolling up 80,000 miles a year, NOTHING ever went wrong with these things...

And conversely, I've seen lots of customer cars that hardly saw any mileage that things were always falling apart on...seen 8 year old cars with 30,000 miles on them that had stretched timing belts and tensioner assembly falling apart, stuck proportioning valves in the brakes, steering rack leaking badly, etc...and even the ones that were in relatively good shape would utterly disintegrate once in the hands of someone who would actually drive them sometimes...loads of people having problems one after another with low mile "cream puffs".

Reminds me of many years ago, shopping for a used car for the wife. She wanted an Olds Cutlass Supeme RWD, early 80's style. One of the dealers I work with had two, one '82 with 125,000 miles (very high miles for it's age at the time), original EVERYTHING, hoses, belts, etc, but obvious signs of loving maintenance...appeared it was highway driven by someone who travelled for a living...and an '83 that had only 33,000 miles, no doubt some elderly person's car (even had the old person smell)...but the brakes felt weird, as if partially seized, the motor idled jittery, and it had the beginnings of an intake manifold leak up front, tires dry rotted, etc...

Guess which one we bought? Yup. Paid less than half what they wanted for the "cream puff", and had it until almost 300,000 miles, when the tranny finally and suddenly ate it's last pancake...great car...

Reply to
jeffcoslacker

Ashton Crusher wrote: On my beater truck I pulled a fram filter apart at

My recent experience with Fram has nothing to do with the filter media. It's the rubber disc check valve that is now junk and wrinkles after a few miles of hot oil, after which the oil drains back out of the system (through the pump) so that the engine rattles and clunks for a second or two after startup while the pump fills things up. The old check valve had a metal backup ring with a spring behind it, and the new one is just the rubber disc without any support. I quit buying them a couple of years ago. I used to sell (in the '70s) the Kralinator filters, so bought a couple of them; they're now made in China (like the Fram) and have the trashy rubber check valve. Ditto for a bunch of other brands. Now I use Pennzoil filters.

Dan

Reply to
Dan_Thomas_nospam

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