Break in period?

[Zig]

4 pages of great reading! I’m just over 500 miles. Consciously not going past 4,500 RPM and making sure RPM’s vary during a drive.

Though the other day I pulled my shifter all the way back into Manual mode on my auto and didn’t realize it. I looked on in horror as I hit almost 7000 RPM’s in first. %$#@! Oh well, I tell myself it happened just once and the car was already warm. I have a Billetworkz shifter coming which has a lockout collar that will keep my dumb thumb from pressing the top of the shifter. That should help me from doing that stupid thing again.

A few interesting things. On my 2006 Mustang GT, the manual said for the 4.6 during break-in to NOT use the engine for braking For the first 500 miles. 5.0 doesn’t have that caution.

I also have refrained from driving in Sport mode for the first 500 miles as it holds the gear longer and hits higher RPM’s before shifting. Sport mode will also turn your 10 speed auto into an 8 speed (approx). As I passed 500 miles, I’ve been dipping my toe (pun) into Sport mode more and it’s like a completely different car. So much more responsive and now I get the burbles and pops from the exhaust in Track mode.

I’m going to still try to not be aggressive until I pass 1k miles. You only break a car in once, but damn, the harder I try to do something, the bigger the chance I’ll screw it up.

Don’t stress over the slip-up, it didn’t break - so there’s that, once or twice isn’t gonna hurt, it’s the same idea as vary speed (read rpm) during break in period while maintaining consistent use (ie road trip). Gotta push that ring line ever so slightly higher every once in awhile just to make sure she can take it.

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[Starship Enterprise]

Thanks Zig…I needed that.

 

[DarkkMatter]

My break-in was 1K miles, and then got first oil change and free tire rotation.
Of course from the beginning I'm usually always between 2-3k rpm all the time at bare minimum when accelerating when "normal" driving.
Stayed under 4K though for first few thousand miles, then I'll start revving higher.

 

[robvas]

Pointless to baby it for more than a couple hundred miles.

 

[Gregs24]

What I find interesting is that fuel consumption on the Coyote keeps improving well into the 6k - 8k range and in my cars finally settled at about 10k with no improvement after that. Shows that the engine is still settling in even then.

 

[Cipis]

Hi all, I studied some break-in procedures from Lake The Motor Oil Geek, prior to car collection. I have the car for 5 days. First 500 km I was stopping often every 20 - 30 minutes going easy up to 3k rpm but keeping under constant pressure or deceleration using paddle shifters from hill after pulls, to keep the rings cooling. After 500km I start to go highway up to 130km/h and decelerate to 90 give it some moment and repeat. No hard pulls yet, but started to go 4k rpm from times to times. Keep the engine busy. Now 2 days later I made it over 1000 km, from the 500 I started to push a little only few times 5-6 k rpm and you notice again the smell of engine. Whenever I smell the engine (silicon rubber kind of) I back off for a while and have break for coffee cigarette.

Now at 1050km oil show 98% of life, time to change the oil and start pushing a bit harder. You don’t want to baby it too much, oil consumption might occur in higher rate. You don’t want to push it too hard, you risking premature unnecessary wear by metals in oil below 2,5ppm oil filter won’t catch. You don’t want to keep constant rpm for extended period of time. City drive, 1class road drive, highway drive later on with varying speeds. That’s the way to go IMO.

 

[Starship Enterprise]

For our European friends….1,000 km is only 621 miles. To achieve the recommended 1,000 mile break-in you’d have to drive 1606 km. Just wondering, do you guys factor that in?

Also, if we worried about our own bodies as much as the car we’d all live to 100…lol.

I decided at over 500 miles, I can start gettin’ on it a little more.

 

[GrabThatBlue]

For our European friends….1,000 km is only 621 miles. To achieve the recommended 1,000 mile break-in you’d have to drive 1606 km. Just wondering, do you guys factor that in?

Also, if we worried about our own bodies as much as the car we’d all live to 100…lol.

I decided at over 500 miles, I can start gettin’ on it a little more.

We have manuals written in km.

 

[Starship Enterprise]

OK cool…so…out of curiosity, if the US manual suggests a 1,000 mile gentle drive break-in, does the European manual translate that to 1,600 km break-in?

 

[GrabThatBlue]

OK cool…so…out of curiosity, if the US manual suggests a 1,000 mile gentle drive break-in, does the European manual translate that to 1,600 km break-in?

Yep, manual is in KM so everything is translated.

 

[Starship Enterprise]

Yeah on the surface, it sounded like a stupid question…lol. But I have read enough manuals to have spotted glaring errors. So I was asking more if the manual writers paid attention.

….ever read a manual detailing a feature you don’t have, or just written so badly it doesn’t make sense? Or many times, like with my RC planes, the company just cut and pastes instructions from another plane detailing something my plane doesn’t have.

I had a career illustrating survival equipment usage procedures for the US Navy, and many times, just by illustrating the donning and usage procedure, I would catch mistakes the engineer and tech writer made.

 

[Gregs24]

Hi all, I studied some break-in procedures from Lake The Motor Oil Geek, prior to car collection. I have the car for 5 days. First 500 km I was stopping often every 20 - 30 minutes going easy up to 3k rpm but keeping under constant pressure or deceleration using paddle shifters from hill after pulls, to keep the rings cooling. After 500km I start to go highway up to 130km/h and decelerate to 90 give it some moment and repeat. No hard pulls yet, but started to go 4k rpm from times to times. Keep the engine busy. Now 2 days later I made it over 1000 km, from the 500 I started to push a little only few times 5-6 k rpm and you notice again the smell of engine. Whenever I smell the engine (silicon rubber kind of) I back off for a while and have break for coffee cigarette.

Now at 1050km oil show 98% of life, time to change the oil and start pushing a bit harder. You don’t want to baby it too much, oil consumption might occur in higher rate. You don’t want to push it too hard, you risking premature unnecessary wear by metals in oil below 2,5ppm oil filter won’t catch. You don’t want to keep constant rpm for extended period of time. City drive, 1class road drive, highway drive later on with varying speeds. That’s the way to go IMO.

The smell is underseal over spray on the exhaust burning off

 

[Cipis]

My manual says 1600km break-in

 

[LouG]

For our European friends….1,000 km is only 621 miles. To achieve the recommended 1,000 mile break-in you’d have to drive 1606 km. Just wondering, do you guys factor that in?

Also, if we worried about our own bodies as much as the car we’d all live to 100…lol.

I decided at over 500 miles, I can start gettin’ on it a little more.

Yep. We do.
I can fix my car, I'm not too keen on DIY surgery.
There was another comment about babying it. Break in is not about babying it, it's just driving normally, avoiding extended high revs, and high load/low rev driving.
Like warming up before getting into heavy exercise.

 

[Starship Enterprise]

I get it. I got my car at 4 miles. You only get one chance to break in the engine. I’ve tasted the power this car has and the break in stage has been torture…lol. I’m ever so slowly dipping in the throttle as I pass 500 miles. I am still setting 1,000 miles as the benchmark.

I loved my 06 GT, but after driving it since 07, driving kind of got to be a routine experience. Since getting this new GT, I instantly loved driving all over again, not to mention with the different drive modes and exhaust settings, I have about 4 different cars in one.

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