It's best to follow the manufactures instructions for break in and maintenance. I know that Hyundai will void your warranty if you don't get the maintenance done. Not sure about others.

 

Actually, if you think about it, all policies have ONE thing in common: They don't want you to do anything to your car that might cause you to uncover defects about the car.. ANYTHING that'll could cause you to return the car to them.

'Cause isn't there a law (in some states) about car buying that says you LEGALLY have 3? days to return a car to the dealer? Maybe this is an old law or maybe it applies only to used cars, cause several years back we bought a used car from a Honda dealership and brought it back the next day cause we found the same car for less somewhere else (we didn't tell them the reason tho). I thought they were gonna put up a fight, but nope.. They were mad as hell but didn't try to refuse us or say anything like "you can't do this cause you signed the contract already".. surprised the heck out of me.

Anyway, point being that dealerships just don't want you to uncover any defects about the car before it's too late, so they try to scare you with tactics like "break-in period" policies.. It doesn't mean you should race your car the first day.. but you shouldn't drive like grandma either..

 

Right, the manufacturer only cares about getting you past the warranty period. After that, who cares?

Basically, I assume that as long as the car can more or less stay together in five yeras, then the manufacturers are golden (to compensate for extended "abuse" or possible extended warranties... but I'm not sure how those work exactly).