Hard break-in

[Projectile]

There are almost as many opinions regarding break-in as there are religions.

None are backed up by any reasonable evidence, only rumor and innuendo.

Until some is provided, I would take them all with a grain of salt.

[mkoesel]

Who cares if your car burns a little oil? Both of mine do, and so did my E46 M3. I adhered to the break-in rules as much as I could but did break them a half dozen or more times on each car. All I care is that they perform like they are supposed to and by my butt-o-meter they certainly do. Good enough for me.

[3XTR3M3]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

Who cares if your car burns a little oil? Both of mine do, and so did my E46 M3. I adhered to the break-in rules as much as I could but did break them a half dozen or more times on each car. All I care is that they perform like they are supposed to and by my butt-o-meter they certainly do. Good enough for me.

This is the thing thats a lil weird to me. I broke mine in about the same way you described. I stuck with the recommended procedure as much as possible but did break it a few times.

And just like yours, my car (E92 M3) and previous cars (E46 M3 and E92 335i), all burned a bit of oil. I have to top the oil off every 2 months or so.


BUT, all these other guys that are saying they broke their cars in hard, never burn oil and never need to top oil off.



WTF is up?

[E82tt6]

Never burned any oil in my 1er, and I flogged it hard after 500. I think I did my first 0-120 on a beautiful road in Italian lake country at 501 miles, looking down at a pristine blue/green glacial lake. :-D

Edit: Regardless of wether or not break in procedure makes the slightest difference, doing ED I REFUSE to pussy-foot it on some of the best driving roads in the world! When you're literally at the locations from the "World's Best Driving Roads" episode of Top Gear, I don't think any blue blooded enthusiast could hold back!

[trucheli]

A month ago I was picking up my E92 M3 in Munich. I followed the break-in by running the car on D (M-DCT) the car would change gears around 3500 rpm. For the first 300 miles I took it easy. But as someone mentioned before how can you hold back on the best roads in the world where you can really open up your car in a safe way. With 300 miles on the clock I took the car up to 170 miles for a short period of time until I hit the governor. On a later day I took it up to 150 mph but kept it on D mode. I am planning on keep driving on D mode until I cross the 1200 miles.

I have also done the factory tour and I saw them testing the 3 series engines up to 55 mph. I don't know how fast they test the M motor but I don't think they run them full throttler on the dyno.

I think 300 or 500 miles is enough time to bed the brakes.

[E82tt6]

Here's how to bed the brakes: http://www.zeckhausen.com/bedding_in_brakes.htm

Once you get into the German country side, there are many good roads to do this on.

[JIO]

For all the people who break-in their cars hard, I have to ask if you skipped the 1200 mile service? I see no reason to get the 1200 mile service done if the car has been driven hard from day 1. No other car manufacture has a 1200 mile service so why bother? I redline my cars from day 1 and skip the 1200 mile service. It doesn't matter to me, I never keep my cars more than 20K miles and I figure the next poor schmuck will inherit all the problems anyway. As my wife always says...never buy a used M3.

I have no idea why BMW even bothers with the 1200 mile service and advising we keep the car under 5500 rpms. I hear they even have a special set-up for the cars that keeps them from revving over 5500 when the car is driven off the boat by the dock workers. Why can't they do the break in for us?

It's a high-revving race car basically so I warm up the car much faster by driving above 7K rpms all the time. My first 20 ABS stop from 140 mph seats the brakes and the donuts I do at night in an empty parking lot "breaks-in" the tires....and the differential. After that, it's good to go. For me that's straight to the track where the car gets a good workout every weekend. The only thing that pisses me off is with my DCT. It didn't let me use launch control for the first 1200 miles. What's up with that? I hope BMW doesn't have a counter on the number of LC's as I use it at least 30 times a day.

Now that's the way to break-in the M3.

So now if you totally disagree with me...good...because I don't don't do any of that above. I baby the car during the break-in, and then after 1200 miles I still bring the car up to redline slowly over the next 1K miles. The car has more than enough power at lower rpms. It's amazing to me that only on the M cars do you have to perform a 1200 service. I'm sure BMW did that just so they can collect more money from us....oh, wait....it's free.

Unfortunately, people still refuse to follow break-in procedures outlined by BMW, so then follow the advice from my wife......Never buy a used M3.

[chris719]

It's an interesting theory, and may well be correct. My Z4M (S54 engine) had 54 miles on it and was test driven hard at least a few times before I purchased it. My SA told me the last guy to test drive it got pulled over going 114 mph... anyway the rules on the 1200 mile sticker were also ignored by a few people I let drive the car early on. I did mostly obey the rules myself though.

I had my 1200 mile service done and at now at 11800 miles I have not had to add a drop of oil, ever. Right before my scheduled service a few weeks ago, I checked the dipstick and I estimate it's burned about 150 mL of oil in 10000+ miles. I was warned the S54 burned a lot of oil by the E46 guys too...

[aus]

One of the tuners here had two cars that dyno'ed low that were not broken in properly and a few others that were more consistent in the expected range. I know it doesn't mean much, but the two low cars were a good 30-40hp lower than expected.

[JIO]

Originally Posted by aus

One of the tuners here had two cars that dyno'ed low that were not broken in properly and a few others that were more consistent in the expected range. I know it doesn't mean much, but the two low cars were a good 30-40hp lower than expected.

That's exactly what I would expect without a proper break-in. Why on earth would BMW have a 1200 mile service on their ticket if it didn't matter how you broke your car in. Why would they change out all the fluids at 1200? Why do they keep the ship workers from redlining the cars? Why can't you use LC from day 1? I assume it's for a reason. I've followed the break-in procedure to a T on my last 8 BMWs (6 M cars) in the last 12 years. None have burned oil, none had any problems. When BMW designed and built their M engines, I'm sure they ran them at high speeds night and day, and then tore them down to see what the internals look like. I'm sure they did their homework. Hell they even require 10W-60 oil for the M cars at $12/liter. If it all didn't matter, they wouldn't go to all the expense.

[Nawaaz]

I'm trying to follow the break-in pretty carefully. I haven't gone above 5,500 rpm's yet, and I haven't exceded 106 mph yet. I already have 800 miles on my new M3 which just came in a few days ago.

[skierman64]

I followed the break in procedure carefully. I got the oil changed at the 1200 mile service and after that the oil it didn't drop off of full until 12,000+. I recently got the oil changed at 14,500 with the oil level at 1/2 of a quart down. That seems like a pretty low oil burn rate.

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by 3XTR3M3

This is the thing thats a lil weird to me. I broke mine in about the same way you described. I stuck with the recommended procedure as much as possible but did break it a few times.

And just like yours, my car (E92 M3) and previous cars (E46 M3 and E92 335i), all burned a bit of oil. I have to top the oil off every 2 months or so.

BUT, all these other guys that are saying they broke their cars in hard, never burn oil and never need to top oil off.

WTF is up?

Yeah, I don't know. But none of this is very scientific. I'll bet if we did a survey (maybe its a good idea for a poll?) and asked people if they burn oil and how they broke in their cars, the results would be very mixed. That is, some people who did a hard break in would burn oil and some wouldn't. Same for by-the-book break-in.

[Wads]

I've always been gentle on my new cars in the past but with the M I tried the hard break in..... so far zero oil use (5000 miles) and having taken part in the Drivers Republic three way test Jethro Bovingdon stated his opinion that my E93 was pulling noticably harder than the M3 vert they had from BMW at the launch.

DR link: http://www.drivers-republic.com/comm...5e0df8dc2590b2

[Wads]

Originally Posted by JIO

For all the people who break-in their cars hard, I have to ask if you skipped the 1200 mile service? I see no reason to get the 1200 mile service done if the car has been driven hard from day 1........

I have no idea why BMW even bothers with the 1200 mile service......

It's amazing to me that only on the M cars do you have to perform a 1200 service.

Why 1200 mile service with the M3??? Because they have a special breakin oil which needs to be changed to normal oil at the service.

[aussiem3]

What I've heard is, given the nature of the M-engines, and they are race bred, the run-in process will increase the longevity of the engine life. That's all it is. Just because you run-in had doesn't mean that you're going to break something. Maybe an engine that will last 120,000 km before a rebuild, and an engine run-in hard might need a rebuild around 80,000 km - this is my conservative guess.
The run-in process is all about increasing the lonegvity of the engine. Period.

[John@BMW]

my car was driven hard during break in- I consume 1 quart of oil every 5k miles. The car does not get babied either. It recently put down 800whp on the dyno stock

[rbk1115]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

Who cares if your car burns a little oil? Both of mine do, and so did my E46 M3. I adhered to the break-in rules as much as I could but did break them a half dozen or more times on each car. All I care is that they perform like they are supposed to and by my butt-o-meter they certainly do. Good enough for me.

I agree.

My old E36 M3 burned a little oil and I followed the break-in procedure. I had to add about a half a quart every 3K miles. The car performed well, with no engine issues when I sold it with 145K miles on the odometer.

As for my E90 M3, I followed the break-in procedures as well. I ordered my car and when I picked it up, it had 3 miles on the odometer. When I got to the 1200 mile service, the electronic dipstick was at 1/2. After the service, the oil level was at 3/4. Now, with about 2650 miles on the odometer and some spirited driving, the oil reading is at 1/2 again.

I don't think the slight oil consumption that I have had on the M3s that I have owned are a big deal. I just try and enjoy the car!

[ersin]

Everybody has their own opinion on this. My opinions run the same at GT3 Tim's. I believe the key points, and I'm pretty sure there is a consensus on this, are:

o Warm up the engine before working it hard (whether during or after break-in)
o During the first thousand or so miles, vary the load on the engine as much as possible
o Don't forget about the other parts of the car that need breaking in

I've heard people swear by running the car hard for break-in. I wouldn't tell anyone to drive it right off the lot like it was stolen though. OTOH, don't baby the car either. Load up the engine during break-in. I believe it is still possible to put load on the engine while remaining within BMW's break-in guidelines.

With my E46 M3 I worked it hard but never (ok, almost never) revved it past 5500 rpm during break-in. I varied the rpms and load. (I live in a mostly rural area so I have pretty nice twisty roads to do this. ) I think I added less than 1 liter / year to top off the oil level (1/4 bottle every two to three months maybe? But I had the oil changed a couple times per year too.) I don't call this excessive oil consumption. Thankfully, there was a dipstick to check the oil level leaving no doubts. I also followed Zeckunhausen's routine to bed in the brakes. They did seem to work better after this, but it may have just been all in my expectations.

This would be the way I would recommend breaking it in if anyone asks me.

If you go past the BMW guideline rpms during break-in once in a while I doubt you'll hurt anything. Perhaps the biggest liability is that if BMW can read the max rpms (which I've heard different stories if they can or not - from both regular BMW-philes as well as CA and SA's) and something does break that you try to get fixed within warranty then the dealer or BMW may use this fact to justify denying warranty coverage on the drive train.

[meevo]

The first ten miles are the most important. I'd follow the guidelines but let it hit the higher rpms, while still staying under the recommended by factory, once every time you drive it until break in is over. That's how I do it anyway, never had a problem with any of my cars. Even if harder broken in cars produce a little more power, it's more reliable this way

[JCtx]

Originally Posted by ersin

Perhaps the biggest liability is that if BMW can read the max rpms (which I've heard different stories if they can or not - from both regular BMW-philes as well as CA and SA's)

They can't without a court order. I asked my local dealer if they could check it because my car had some miles and I was concerned and they said 'unfortunately not without a court order'. Furthermore, I made that a condition (just to double check what my dealer told me) to buy the car in Vegas, and dealer said they couldn't do it. If they were willing to lose a sale for that, I'm sure they just couldn't do it. I obviously bought the car anyway, but was disappointed not being able to check that. And yes, I read that false statement on the internet . Good day gang.

[powertrip]

You sure about that?? My buddy just bought an M3 that was a demo, and they were more than happy to hook it up to see what the max rpm was. Might want to check your facts on that one...