I know it been posted here so many times its not even funny anymore .. " What is the proper way to break in an engine? " I just thought i would pass along this information that i found out yesterday.

I had to purchase another vehicle recently so my wife can use it for her crafts. I bought a new Chevy Express 1500 cargo van ( with the Scion parked next to it, it looks like the Scion could fit in the van ). This is the second car/van that i have tried the break in method recommended by " Moto Man " which is drive it hard for the first 20 miles, then regularly for another 200 miles. Change the oil to flush out the debris and add more dino oil. Change to synthetic oil in another 1K miles.

Well, i changed the oil in the van yesteday ( 645 miles, a little more then the 200, but whatcha gonna do? ) and was surprised with what i found. The oil coming out of the pan was dark; not quite black, and i couldnt really notice any "debris" in the oil itself. I was shoked when i pick up the oil pan plug when it was time to re-install it. The plug has a magnet on the end to pick up the little pieces of metal in the engine. I didnt realize this at first, and thought that the black tip was part of the plug. After wiping it off to remove any dirt from the threaded portion, it was then i realized it was magnetic. The amount of crap that came off the end of the plug was amazing. If the wife was home i would have had her take a picture of it. The black blob left a greyish/black smudge on my towel the size of the top of a can of tuna fish! The little black blob was about the size of large kernal of corn on the end of the plug. After several wipes with a cloth, i still had trouble getting some of the metal of flakes removed from the plug. I was amazed at how much crap is in the oil after this kind of break in. From now on this is how i will break in all my engines, and will recommend this method to all who asks me.

BTW, does anyone know how to remove metal flakes from a magnet, with out demagnatizing the magnet?

 

If you have compresor and a blow gun I'd try blowing it off, or maybe try blasting it off with carb spray (using the straw)
But I wouldn't worry about getting every last speck off. If you can't get it off, I really doubt that it'll come off in the engine.

 

use a bigger magnet?

really, just wipe whatever you can off. whatever you can't get should stay attracted to the magnet.

 

How do you know for sure this is the best way to break in the vehicle though?

I have always heard that for the first 400-500 miles you shouldn't drive much over 50. Then after that you just slowly increase the top speed every couple hundred miles.

 

I cant tell you for sure. There is a thread floating around here from some guy that calls himself MotoMan. He suggest doing the break in this way to improve the overall life and longivity of the engine. I first did it this way on the xB, then did it on the Cargo Van. The cargo van is the one with the magnetic plug, and thus caught all the crap that was floating around in my oil. I can only post what i found out .... is Chevy adding little flakes of metal to the engines oil off the assembly line, i wouldnt think so. So something that the MotoMan suggest must be true, right?

 

I know what you're saying, but it's hard to say because those shavings that were on the plug might have been stuff that shouldn't fall off :X

I'll have to look up some stuff and see what I can find also

 

:twisted:

 

With the majority of engine wear taking place during the starting of the engine, and also when idling to warm up, this is due mainly due to lack of lubrication on metal parts. The best way to warm a car up is start it, and then drive off as though you have your foot on an egg. No idling, no hard acceleration. The car warms up most quickly, and you have less engine wear. With synthetic oil, it warms up even faster. With new vehicles, the tolerances of the metal parts are tight since no metal has worn away yet, and this is done gradually as suggested by the mfr breakin in the owners manual. It does not make sense that a mfr with zillions of dolaars (yen) of engineering efforts and experience and computers behind them to suggest a breakin method that is not going to be best for the vehicle. A hard breakin is going to wear away more metal, sure, just like stomping on the accelerator after you've been driving the car for only a few minutes. Keep doing it if your goal is to wear away the metal parts so you can look at metal chunks on your magnet!

On another note, contradictory to this, when racing engines (motorcycle or cars) are put together, do they break them in at all? I imagine a great deal of them use synthetic, which allows a greater stress before breaking down, but do they build in a certain loose-ness as an automatic breakin, or do they make 'em tight and let the synth do the job of keeping the parts moving? Totally clueless about this.

 

Since most of the newbs are posting with out reading this thread that was posted quite some time ago, i figured i would use the SEARCH function and find it for them, here is the link ...

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

Logically, this made sense to me. I did follow the manufactors directions on break in on my 2K Plymouth Neon. Guess what, now with only 55K miles on it, the damn thing is noisey as all hell. Ill be surprised if it sees 100K miles. I tried the other break in method on the xB, and havent had so much as a tap from the front end ( unlike other who have posted here on S.L. ). Now i followed similar procedures with my new van, and was impressed with the results this far with what was stuck at the end of the drain plug. I find it as VISIBLE truth for the link posted above.

 

read the whole artcle on motoman's break in secrets and this thread. any long term results on these engines that went through motoman's method? besides racing engines where they always rebuild them, i'd like to hear from regular people like you and me with at least 100k miles on their cars that used the method.

 

I've got 148K miles on my '94 Dodge Grand Caravan 3.3L and 130K on my '96 VW Passat TDI. Both broken-in correctly and using Mobil-1 for yrs. I was going to wait for one to die before getting a Scion, but since that could take years still, I'm going to have the Scion as a third vehicle.

 

I bet a lot of it has to do with your driving style.

If you're just a daily driver with no leadfoot then the owner's manual way would work fine. If someone down the road buys the vehicle and they do have a leadfoot then they might run into problems.

But if you're a leadfoot and want the best performance this seems to be the way to go...

 

Don't worry. That magnetic sludge is called "fines". The generation of fines in constant, inherent and will not ever cease.

The new engine will naturally enough generate more fines than later on. Yet, you should expect to see a similar amount of fines after future oil changes, esp. when the drain intervals are wider apart.

Do these fines hurt anything? Not really. They are soooooo fine that no regular filter will catch them. Yet, being so microscopically fine, they do not cause much engine wear, if any at all.

How to clean the plug? Lacking a blow gun- I suggest wiping, and then solvent rinsing, then wipe and if you feel the unnecessary compulsion to -really- clean the magnetic tip..... well, we have a new use for duct tape. Sticky off the fines like a printing press does with ink.

I do like, believe in and advocate magnetic plugs. I want to catch gravel and fines as much as possible, even tho, really- the filter and the baffling catches all that really needs to be caught. Am surprised Chevy would fit a new vehicle with a magnetic plug inasmuch as the universal result (your furred plug) tends to cause great alarm and lost sleep, shattered nerves and dealer service department defensive headaches.

Down the road, you can assure yourself of having a normally wearing engine by getting an oil analysis done. Not expensive, and if any of the parameters (metal contamination, etc) are out of bounds you'll know it, and go to your dealer armed with some irrefutable proof that all isn't right.

 

Do they make magnetic plugs for the scions yet?

 

I am a mechanic myself, and i build alot of engines, i have always used the cheapest conventional motor oil for the first 3000 miles, no synthetics, also this is my schedule
500 miles change oil and filter
1000 miles change oil and filter
1500, change oil and filter
3000 change oil and filter with good oil synthetic is good, factory specified viscosity,
use of a filter magnet and magnet traps on the oil pan are actually helpful and can catch some of the metal,
dos and donts
dont rev the engine drasticly, smooth progression for the first 1500 stay under 4000rpm if possible, it is actually better to brake in the engine on the city streets than a long period on the highway, you want the rings to seat properly, they will seat in better at lower more stop and go driving than a 500 mile trip averaging 75mph at 5000 rpm....good luck, hope it helped alittle

 

It seems that an agreement on methods with never be reached... all is lost...

 

I have been using lucas oil additive in my van for quite some time. Although i did not buy the van new, It turns over with just one crank and my oil is rarley as dirty as when I just used straight oil. I Imagine that including this in your first oil change, or even swapping the oil on purchase may help. Its the only additive that i have used that acctually works.

 

im scared haha i have a tc and it has 500 miles on it and i have accelerated hard in that thing a couple of times now im scared

 

haha are you kidding me, only a couple times?

I have ~750 miles on my xA, got it with 260 and I have nailed it quite a few times. Everything seems to be running fine though

 

Having read all that before I bought my xA, I completely disagreed with the extreme break in method. But within the first 60 miles I couldn't help myself. This little devil inside was saying, "do it! It'll be good for the engine! C'MOn!!!!!!!!" Well I'm at 1000 miles now and it's been two weeks. I've driven the crap outta her about 10% of the time and 90% of the time as directed by the manual. I'm out of break in now, and I'm punishing it hardcore. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: