SpoonieLuv

I have heard that driving the car hard before break in will result in a poorer performing engine. Is this true?

I find this hard to believe since ALL of the road tests done on new cars are done when they are fairly new. You know, magazine tests.

Opinions? links? facts?

qcrobinson

I was misinformed by the dealer that a break in period wasn't necessary (first time buying a new car, yeah I'm ignorant) and they were out of owner's manuals, so I drove my Z pretty aggressively for the first 1200 miles.

I just called NNA to get more technical details about the break in period. I'll post em if I get anything interesting back.

koolzero

iTrader: (14)

I drove my car pretty easily when I first got it. It's the first stick I've ever driven. I redlined it probably 2 or 3 times before I reached the breakin mark (1,000 miles). And when I drove it nicely I shifted at no higher than 3,000 rpm. I dynoed at 250 (w/ grounding cables).

dr_gallup

There is one school of thought that says you should break an engine in like you intend to drive it. Some people claim that excessive babying during the initial breakin leads to an engine that won't ever seat it's rings properly and will be down on power at high RPMs. I personally don't believe any of that and prefer to follow the recommended procedure. However, todays engines are built with great precision and the breakin process is quite short. I doubt that it makes much difference most cases. Maybe if you happened to have an extreme mismatch of tolerances with say the tightest possible piston-cylinder clearance you might do some damage running it too hard too soon.

qcrobinson

NNA hasn't really answered my question all that well so I will get back in touch with them....

SteveZ

iTrader: (3)

I tend to agree with the engine-related break-in, it likely isn't as much of an issue as in prior years.

I do believe it matters more with brakes, transmissions, etc. Hot-spotting rotors, glazed pads, clutch, etc. seem more likely to happen on brand new parts to me than those with some wear already on them. Plus, tires can be really squirrley (sp?) when new; some I've had didn't really find their traction until ~500 miles.

Then again, Dodge tells me to not consider break-in on my new Hemi Ram truck, "not an issue" they say - drive it as you would over a wide range of conditions. Go figure...

I've also seen pseudo-tests (not the most credibleIMHO) that claim engines not run at high revs when "young" have lower hp output later in life. I doubt that's true with the 3.5 in our Z's.

I bet there are a lot of owners out there like myself that tried to be nice, keep it under 4k rpm, but I sure missed a few times prior to 1000 miles (e.g. unexpected tire spin in 1st-2nd, cold tires, hit a little sand)

After all, common sense would say if run the car hard as hell no matter what the age, it's just not going to last as long - duh. Look at the most advanced Race Cars out there, with the most precise engines and high-tech gear - they break regularly, mostly because they're driven at or near the limit.

TELCO119

I don't know guys.........more and more manufacturers are advising people to "break in" their new cars without pampering them. (Dodge and Chevy for example). The only way to properly seat the rings on a high performance engine is with pressure during "break in". If the engine isn't exposed to a healthy amount of high rpm's, the top end power wont be as efficeintl later on. I'm not saying to bounce off the rev limiter for the first 1K miles, I'm saying that "break in" should probably be considered "training". When I finally get my Z I will definately "train" it to perform.

Ouch....my Oct/Nov ETA got pushed back to Jan/Feb yesterday :-(