Quote:
Originally Posted by mexicanmike
Maybe this has been asked in the past, but If i can get a detailed explanation of the consequences of an improperly broken in car that would be great. That is to say, what happens if someone doesn't follow the 1200 mile break in period? What happens if they don't break in the 3100 mile process properly? I bought the car used, and it is in mint condition as far as I can tell. The car had about 2400 miles on it, and according to a service guy, who bye the way compared car service records to medical records, the 1200 mile service was done on time, and the battery was changed recently (Didn't make extreme sense, but maybe someone was careless and left a light on). I couldn't get them to release the service records to me, but maybe if I talk to a local service agent I can get them. Anyway, back to the question, what are the consequences of a improperly "broke in" M?
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I dunno man, if you're (or anyone) concerned about whether your engine is "okay" (I know, how much more subjective could that be...), take it to a performance shop and have it dynoed to see what kind of numbers is puts down. Also monitoring oil consumption can give you an idea of how solid an engine is, but this is somewhat dependent on how you drive the car also. An engine that see's lots of high rpm driving is naturally going to burn a little more. If an engine burned a lot of oil under mostly normal/lightly spirited driving I'd be a little concerned. Or have an oil analysis done. Eventually you'll have an idea as to what the engine is doing.
I think some people go a little crazy over this for no reason. No two engines are 100% identical due to mfg tolerances and run-in procedure, but we're not talking wild, huge differences anymore...much more precise mfg tolerances in modern engines sees to that. My personal stance is to make sure the engine is warmed up before digging into the throttle any more than necessary to keep the car moving, but after that I never feel guilty about putting the hammer down a little bit even from mile 0. Lots of people do this and report trouble free, solid engines well into the car's life (anecdotally of course).