Engine Running In... is it still a thing?

Faults and Technical chat for the Volvo XC40
Ian Almighty
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Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:09 pm

Post by Ian Almighty »

Hi All,

I'm scheduled to take delivery of my T5 Recharge in September (that's the current plan) and I was wondering - do you still need to run in an engine? or am I old fashioned?

Back in the day it would take several miles before you could really let rip i.e. first 500 miles with a max rpm of 3000 and no labouring the engine.

Cheers
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Greggspies
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Joined: Mon Jul 05, 2021 10:16 am

Post by Greggspies »

Ian, modern materials, manufacturing practices and lubricants seem to have made a specific regime unnecessary. My own practice is to be gentle on the brakes and tyres for the first 200 miles to allow them to bed in and to drive 'economically' for the first week or two. It gives me peace of mind at least.

My last BMW said not to exceed certain revs but that amounted to well over the legal speed limit anyway.
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ciuncky
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Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2019 2:46 pm

Post by ciuncky »

My "routine" for both a Mazda 3 and the XC40 was to actually hammer it occasionally for the first 1000km or so.
While modern engines are indeed ran or broken-in, there is still a massive difference in consumption, noise, vibration etc even after 5000 km. There's a (forgive the technical term) S.H.I.T.-TON of components that need to be put to bed, so it won't really harm it.

What i've been recommended by the Mazda lady as well as my father who had over o dozen cars, both old and new - run it like you will on a normal day, but also run it like you're robbing a bank; that will allow the higher gears to get in on the action too and fall into place nicely, rather than end with smooth 1-5 gears and crap 6-8. :)

(to give the best example - no, i don't much care about MPG on such a car, but the dealer to home trip was at 9.8mpg. I do nearly the same trip every day to work, and i average now between 22 and 29 mpg. so yeah, run that engine like your baby, then run it like your bitch haha)
Ian Almighty
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Post by Ian Almighty »

Thanks for the replies, I'll hammer occasionally just to show who's da boss!
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Greggspies
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Post by Greggspies »

I took a brand new XC40 T5 recharge out for an extended test drive. I must admit I did thrash it to see what it would do. I hope it's not my fault it sounded like a bag of nails when I took it back...

I will not be doing that to my own car when I pick it up in 10 days time.
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step2534
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Post by step2534 »

In all honesty I don't think you can thrash a automatic. Ive had numerous bmw motorcycles and run them in relatively hard, I did 56000 on one of them and it went like a dream and never used any oil.
Deleted User 3359

Post by Deleted User 3359 »

The difficulty you have with modern vehicles is the extensive use of synthetic oil... on my Seat Exeo, two Moto Guzzi and one Triumph that fell into that category it's vital to keep an eye on oil level as the extra lubricity, and the finer machining tolerances means you can burn a good amount of oil in the first 5-10 k miles... I probably put 3 litres in that lot...
ACertainAge
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Post by ACertainAge »

It probably isn't, but manuals say don't exceed certain revs for the first xx miles. I've always been very gentle with all my new cars and been very happy with oil consumption and engines over long periods of ownership.
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Post by Deleted User 3629 »

Its well understood that tolerances are much better in new engines than of old but small discrepancies still may exist. I have always run-in new engines and have always had little or zero oil consumption during service intervals, and MPG's that have exceed expectation - 1000 miles of gentle running in is a small price to pay for years of motoring thereafter
Ian Almighty
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Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:09 pm

Post by Ian Almighty »

Oldie wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 3:12 pm Its well understood that tolerances are much better in new engines than of old but small discrepancies still may exist. I have always run-in new engines and have always had little or zero oil consumption during service intervals, and MPG's that have exceed expectation - 1000 miles of gentle running in is a small price to pay for years of motoring thereafter
Agreed - common sense.
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