bhvrdr

I tend to like this article from Mike Allen. Basically stating to put some load on the engine without all out redline (you can apply full load at lower rpms), avoid cruise control (low load cruising) and avoid extreme duty such as redlining, racing, towing for the first 1000 miles. This is actually pretty similar to the motoman method. Even Motoman does not say it is necessary to go redlining the engine. He states, "The best method is to alternate between short bursts of hard acceleration and deceleration. You don't have to go over 65 mph / 104 kph to properly load the rings."

New Car Care ? How to Take Care of a New Car

So if you adapt advice from both the manufacturer and Motoman you can take away from it that both recommend making sure load is put on the engine and neither one states you need to be doing any extreme driving/redlining/racing, etc for a good break-in.


In truth, i've owned over 40 cars and never noticed any differences in oil consumption or any failures related to how I broke them in. If there was an absolute definitive way to break-in the engine there wouldnt be so many different opinions about it. What seems to be a consensus though is to make sure to put load on the engine and to generally avoid extreme duty.

And to the poster who had oil consumption on the 2.0TFSI in the A5, that had nothing to do with break-in. Those engines were defective and Audi issued a TSB on over 190,000 of them for defective rings. I had that engine too and it burned a quart of oil every 200 miles...yes, 200 miles.

Mike

Eric_C

I agree with drive it hard the moment you get it.

I have done it to every single car we have owned and never had a single issue.

DrGP

Define "Hard"

Eric_C

Sideways out of the dealer lot

The idea behind engine break in was before parts were hardened before they went into the engine you had to heat cycle them and harden them yourself.

Improperly broken in cars ran like crap because the cam lobes would get ground down because the metal was still soft.

I've owned over 50 cars and every single one of them I drove them to enjoy them and never had a single problem.

I've been road racing with a car with 100 miles on it. We took my wife's last Jeep running hard through the dunes with 300 miles on it.

There is probably more to do with non-precious parts like water pump bearings and things like that breaking in than anything to do directly with the motor.

One thing I do however is change the oil very early on, maybe 300 miles or so. No doubts that there is loose metal in the motor and oil from being fresh so I get those out as soon as I can.