Who Here Follows The Engine Break In Procedure?

[RyanbabZ71]

Under 55 mph

Vary speeds

No cruise control

 

Just curious, I did on my 2000 Silverado, 2008 Tahoe and currently doing it on my 2010 Silverado.

 

It was a long ride to our friends house (70 mpg speed limit) I was passed by everything on the road. Did I care? Not at all because at any point I could have left them in the dust

 

I am at about 325 miles. After the xmas holiday I will be switching over to Mobil 1 also.

[Stex]

Some what...I did not use the cruise and did not tow for the first 500...dealer said no real break in, just do not tow for awhile????

Heck I took it to 85 on my test drive when I bought it...did not know about any break in tell I read the book...after 500 miles.....

went to Syn at 3000 miles...syn seems to have taken the startup shakes out of the engine and the idle has smoothed when stopped at lights etc...my friends 07 with dino oil still shakes, rattles and rolls on startup and idles a touch rough at lights etc??

[az'03Silverado]

The break-in for a car isn't that bad at all. I work on a fleet of small piston airplanes for a living. Every time we put a new motor in one of those, it's straight mineral oil and no touch-and-go's for the first 50 hours. Only cross-country cruise flying. Once it stops eating oil, we change to regular Aeroshell 50w. It doesn't sound like much, but it's real hard to keep track of at a busy flight school.

[Badass69]

Engines break in more quickly under load. You don't have to rev them really high or drive the hell out of them but at the same time dogging them won't seat the rings as fast either. I drive my stuff pretty well how it will be driven, which is pretty hard actually. I do the first oil change at around 600 miles ( everything, engine( go to synthetic at this time as well), transfer case and both diffs) and then the engine again at 3000 miles. Most performance oriented rebuilds get warmed up and then broken in under load on a dyno. I try and do my in vehicle engines in much the same manner.

 

Any engine I have had eats oil up to about the 1500-2000 mile mark at the most and then stops. All that initial metal that goes in the oils is not something I want floating around in there for long. The diffs are always really bad as the gear set wears in on itself, so not only is there metal but the coating that is on the gears. The transfer case is usually reasonably clean but I just like to be safe. The transmission usually not, but a hydraulic circuit won't dump tons of anything in itself until the clutches start to wear. I always use sythetics throughout the powertrain, and only use the factory fill in the NV 246 transfer case to get its friction modifiers. So no, I don't follow GM's break in procedure at all. I go above and beyond it.

[texasblueline]

Yep, I'm following it on mine, was a slow drive home from the dealership since I bought from one that wasn't too close to the house. I've just been staying on surface streets to avoid the temptation on the highways. Downside is Monday I've got a long commute for work (my normal commute is only 10 miles in town) that I'd normally take the highway for, so I'm probably gonna leave an extra 30-45 minutes early and take surface streets to get there.

 

Funny it came up, I was about to start a new post on recommendations on what synthetic oil to change to after the 500 mile breakin. Also wanted to get some thoughts on changing out the transfer case and differential fluids at that time as well, and what fluids ya'll recommend.

[GasHog369]

Ive had 3 new trucks so far

 

2003 silverado w/ 5.3

 

2004 colorado w/ I5

 

current- 2006 silverado w/ 5.3

 

And all of them i broke in by driving it like i always will.... Fast / hard!

 

I've always heard that if you break in a motor soft that the rings / seals / etc will get use to that and then when you start to get heavy on it , thats when damage occurs from the motor not use to it.

 

Plus my dad use to work im gm powertrain and he even said when they tested these engines , there was no break in done... it was balls to the wall !

 

All of my vehicles i use Royal purple, and have never had a problem with the motors... My truck now have over 30,000 on it and still purrs like a strong v8.

 

Only thing that annoys me under the hood is the usual belt squeel when its cold but thats another story

[Nytemare]

Ive had 3 new trucks so far

 

2003 silverado w/ 5.3

 

2004 colorado w/ I5

 

current- 2006 silverado w/ 5.3

 

And all of them i broke in by driving it like i always will.... Fast / hard!

 

I've always heard that if you break in a motor soft that the rings / seals / etc will get use to that and then when you start to get heavy on it , thats when damage occurs from the motor not use to it.

 

Plus my dad use to work im gm powertrain and he even said when they tested these engines , there was no break in done... it was balls to the wall !

 

All of my vehicles i use Royal purple, and have never had a problem with the motors... My truck now have over 30,000 on it and still purrs like a strong v8.

 

Only thing that annoys me under the hood is the usual belt squeel when its cold but thats another story

A buddy of mine is the shop Stewart at the metro transit shop. He told me that they bring all their buses out to the highway, flip on the 4-ways, have the sign saying brake in in progress, and pin the go peddle to the floor boards. Doesn't really matter if its a new bus or if its a rebuilt engine. They usually get about 750K km out of the engines...and they're being run 18-20 hrs a day, every day.

[ken1mod]

Gentlemen,

 

I always believed that the break in procedure was more for the gear units than the engine. Aircraft engines are thrrashed during the break in period. Lots of high power. Gear units must build up the proper finish on the contacting gear surfaces.

 

ken

[Porter_]

followed it to a T.

[sab316]

Drove her 70-75 out of Memphis (about 45-1 hour to my house) and never really did the "break in procedure" she runs fine. No problems.

[Bowtie2Sierra]

Yep, sure did.

[brims]

I followed the break-in proceedure on both of my Silverados.

[punmax]

Nope. When we picked the Camaro up, first thing I did was a burn out at school followed by some drifts (will try finding the vid).

[alaska511]

Nope. When we picked the Camaro up, first thing I did was a burn out at school followed by some drifts (will try finding the vid).

 

 

Color me stunned...

[CalixEros]

When I bought mine I had a 400 mile trip to make the following week that, fortunately, was mostly back roads not highway. So I had a lot of varied engine speed, didn't feather the throttle but didn't floor it either. It's pretty much the way I still drive it, although now I have a lot of sustained highway speed.