Those 100 or so cars I broke in were driven from the port of entry right on to the highway, at the rate of about 1,000 miles per week, new car every 12 weeks. Most of the people in our office drove about the same amount, and friends and relatives often bought those cars. A friend just got rid of my former demos (1986 Celica GTS) with about 375,000 miles because it was going to need a clutch. IMO, there is no need to avoid steady highway speeds.
Yup, nice long rides thru the mountains. :)
sdb
Ray, thanks. I have seen another post say something similar about the rings seating best with conventional oil at first, before switching to synthetic. I am pondering this but don't quite see why conventional oil and r lack of slipperiness of synthetic is preferable for the rings. Seating I would assume is having each cylinder wall mate up well with the piston rings.
Could you elaborate on the element of changing the oil too soon /. rings seating, and or if too much trouble, possibly refer me to some location which elaborates on this factor of ensuring the rings seat properly ?
thanks
Forrest
Theres some evidence that pushing the car very hard during break-in is beneficial to ring bedding and power output, expecially on motorbike engines where a noticable % increase in power was gained from parallel experiments of light and high load break-ins on identical machines. I dont know which to believe! J
Are the motorbike engines aircooled and/or two stroke?
4 stroke, water IIRC Heres a similar link:
The common wisdom among the people that I worked with is that the way you break in a car is the way it will "behave" after it is broken in, kind of like training a horse.
Well that all agrees then, and thats probably why toyota dont have a specific break-in process.
The problem I found with researching new engine break-in on the internet is that the majority of people posting information have little or no engineering or scientific background, and you can find hundreds of articles and posts, each with an opinion on why their break-in method is better than others.
IMO, the best source of automotive engineering information is the Society of Automotive Engineers, but they charge for access to their articles, and I have let my membership lapse because I no longer work for an automaker.
I did find an article about aircraft engine break-in by someone from Cessna that seems to do a good job of explaining what is going on:
I have never seen a recommendation from Toyota that suggests that there is anything to be gained by performing the first oil change at 500 or 1,000 miles, and I have never done it in any of the 100 or so new cars I have broken in.
Just to add my 2 cents. I had one of the famous gelling Avalons, and barely drove the car 4 thousand miles per year. I changed the oil by time, not mileage, and had no gelling issue or any other engine issue during the 5 years I owned it. So I would not bother with unnecessary drives. But my shopping trips did allow the engine to fully warm up, accordign to he gauage.
I've never understood why people want to change the oil on a new car after
500 miles. They seem to be worried about shavings in the oil from manufacturing, but shouldn't the oil filter take them out?
It is an urban legend, probably started by the oil companies or by someone who reads a lot of car magazines and thinks he is an expert.
About 50 years ago I recall seeing a used John Deere 'open type' oil filter covered with what looked like cat hairs - but were actually metal shavings from engine parts. This was not the last leg of engine failure.
M
Fortunately, engine manufacturing technology has evolved to the point where one no longer expects to find metal shavings in the oil pan of a new engine.
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