Break-in period

[campersand]

My V is at about 1,000 miles right now and I'm wondering what you guys think about the idea of making a long trip slightly before I reach my break-in point. I'm wanting to drive up to Canada on Thursday night, by then I should have at least 1,100 miles on it. Is that last 100 miles a big deal or is it probably okay?

[proxim2020]

I put my V on the road when it only had 167 miles on it. That was a 36 hour 2550 mile journey and I didn't experience any mechanical problems. 2 weeks later I put it back on the road again for another 36 hour journey back home. Still, no problems. You'll be ok. I remember a posting from Elmojo a while back where he was told by a service manager that Nissan engines were ran through a 500 mile break in on a bench before they are installed into any car. So in actuality, there's no real "break in" period needed for a Nissan.

[campersand]

Why would the manual say that you need to break it in for 1,200 miles then? I think I'd tend to listen to Nissan over a service manager.

[ilusha55]

1000 miles of babying would be enough to me.Just think of it that way - an average consumer will probably baby the car for say 1 week and then go to his stressed out traffic nervous stop and go and highway 80mph. Nissan knows that so in order to not get broken on the warranty repairs they definitely do something about the break in issue. What? It wasn't officially said but you should be ok with 1000 miles.

[LA02MAX]

My V is at about 1,000 miles right now and I'm wondering what you guys think about the idea of making a long trip slightly before I reach my break-in point. I'm wanting to drive up to Canada on Thursday night, by then I should have at least 1,100 miles on it. Is that last 100 miles a big deal or is it probably okay?

The main thing you need to do to get those rings seated properly is to vary the engine speed a bit. So every now and then just punch it into a different gear (L if you have CVT or 4th if it's a 6-speed) and hit the throttle a bit. Agressive throttle inputs also allows the rings to seat quicker. I doubt you'll have any problems though considering it already has 1000 miles on it...

[versabundus]

I wouldn't worry about it. Ive owned many new cars and the newer vintage ones need very little break in. You can imagine how the exporting/importing/dealer service people drive them

[motoguy128]

I think lawyers write break-in rules, not engineers. Consider that mysteriously, the Tiida and Clio are capable of towing 1100lbs (2200lbs with trailer brakes), yet the same chassis and powertrain has no tow rating in the US.

Myself. For the first 1000 miles I avoid redlining the motor and made a point not to constantly vary my speed and change gear every few miles. It really doesn't matter. I think it mattered on cars 50 year ago and companies have been hesitant ot remove the requirement. It gives them an excuse to deny warranty claims for cars that are driven hard... but not nessesarily abuse.

[LA02MAX]

Myself. For the first 1000 miles I avoid redlining the motor and made a point not to constantly vary my speed and change gear every few miles. It really doesn't matter. I think it mattered on cars 50 year ago and companies have been hesitant ot remove the requirement. It gives them an excuse to deny warranty claims for cars that are driven hard... but not nessesarily abuse.

Then you're doing the opposite of what you should be. Yes every engine has a break in period. The way you treat it during this time can very well affect it's performance 100-200k down the road. Engines with properly seated rings will outlast the ones without them. Yes, the rings can seat perfectly fine under normal "babying" conditions, but you have a much greater chance of seating them properly by following proper break in techniques. Using fairly aggressive throttle inputs pushes the rings out against the cylinder and expedites ring seating. Also, try to hit every part of the powerband, not below 3k or whatever it is the dealers say. Varying the engine speed is also very important during break-in. I'm not the government and I'm not trying to start a conspiracy, but what I stated holds very much water when you know look at how the engines work and how they are assembled.

[proxim2020]

Why would the manual say that you need to break it in for 1,200 miles then? I think I'd tend to listen to Nissan over a service manager.

Why would you even bother asking the question if you're going to turn around and answer it If the manual's what you trust, then you should abide by that. I agree with motoguy, the "take it easy" period is more of a legal issue than anything. Break in's are going down the same route as true tune ups and not waxing you car after you buy it. I've provided a link below with a few FAQs about break in. In it, you'll find that the true break in period is within a very small window. The link also explains why older engines needed a longer period and why newer engines do not. If Nissan's running this engines through a 500 mile equivalent, you have no shot at the "true" break in. It makes more sense that NNA run the bench test for the true break in then advise you to take it easy just in case. Even if the engines are not bench tested after all, there's a good chance you will still miss the break in. You only stand a chance if you have really low mileage when you get it.

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm As a side note, LA02MAX is absolute right with how to break in a engine. If you're putting in a brand new engine (fresh out of crate or never started/driven too much), follow his advice and the advice in the link. As far as the V, you may not have this opportunity since there's a good chance that you car has been driving around too much.

[campersand]

Why would you even bother asking the question if you're going to turn around and answer it If the manual's what you trust, then you should abide by that.

I wasn't answering my own question, I was wondering why the manual would say to break it in for 1200 miles if there really was no break-in required. Plus, there's a big difference between totally disregarding the break-in period and abiding by it for 1,100 miles. I probably wouldn't take the advice to ignore the break-in period completely just because I don't know that much about cars so I'd be nervous to ignore the manual like that. But the difference between 1,100 and 1,200 miles isn't that big of a deal.

[DreamU]

You only stand a chance if you have really low mileage when you get it.

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm As far as the V, you may not have this opportunity since there's a good chance that you car has been driving around too much.

Those pictures of the pistons are pretty convincing. But as you noted, mine had more than 20 miles on it when I took possession at the dealer. Even if you don't have 20 miles on it there is no way to tell whether they left it idling while loading it onto the carrier. If so, goodbye cross-hatch pattern.

[Elmojo]

I'm surprised anyone remembered what I posted!The dealer did in fact tell me that there is no 'official' break-in period.However, as stated earlier, the manual does specify a break-in period.I would agree that the manual is probably the safer bet over any service tech.In any case, it's in writing and can be easily proven.Take your trip, the V can take it. 1K miles is enough break-in.

[blockmachining]

OK....I'm some 13 months late, but I guess this is one of those better late than never sort of things. I worked for Nissan North America for 13 years. During that time, I was responsible for the machining and assembly of approximately 6.6 million engines and 3.2 million transaxles. I spent 42 weeks in Japan training, 18 weeks in Mexico, and 12 weeks in England. Now, getting to the points.....Nissan does not perform a 500 hour bench test on every engine. Each engine is hot tested for approximately 2.5 minutes during which time the timing is set, oil pressures are checked, and the engine is checked for unusual noises. That is it. Nissan is one of the last auto companies to perform a "hot test"...actually running the engine. Almost all other companies perform a cold test.....they turn the engine over using an electric motor. The cost of fuel and manpower to perform a hot test is almost 4 times the cost of a cold test. Nissan does take one engine manufactured off of each engine assembly line each day and performs a dyno test. These engines are then torn down and inspected for any unusual wear patterns, or even failures. Once per week, an engine is ran to simulate a 110,000 mile trip. These engines are ran at 200 rpm over redline and then torn down and checked for damage and unusual wear. Nissan really trys to build an outstanding engine! As far as the break in period is concerned, you need to observe and follow what the manual says. The reason for this pertains mostly to the seating of the valves. Engine life is greatly impacted on where the valve seals against the valve seats. If you run an engine too hard at the beginning of its life, then the valves will have a tendency to seat too deep into the valve seat which allows very little room for future valve and valve seat wear before you start having compression leaks around these two engine components. When we performed our quality checks during the engine assembly process, we would perform a die check to actually see the point at which the valve was sealing against the valve seat. If this point was too deep, then the machining process for the seats had to be adjusted. If it was too shallow, again, an adjustment had to be made. If the contact point was too shallow, you would have a compression leak just the same as if it were too deep. As far as oil changes for a new engine....no matter how hard we tried, especially when machining the engine blocks, we never got 100% of the shavings out of an engine block. There are just way too many small little cavities in the oil and water galleys for little slivers to hide. As part of our quality control procedures, every two hours, we would perform contamination checks on our blocks, heads and crankshafts. If we found an unusally high amount of contamination, then more than likely we had a washer nozzle clogged or even out of alignment. Yes, the oil filter will pick this up after this sliver hits the oil pan and is picked up by the oil pickup tube and pumped from the oil pump into the oil filter, but there is absolutley no one who can guarantee that before this sliver makes it back down to the oil pan that it will not cause some damage on its way there. Bore or bearing scratches also reduce engine life. I do want to say this.....we were very good at not having abnormal levels of contamination. Not only did we check for total contaminatin weight, but also the size of the contamination pieces. The very best thing you can do for engine life is to get the dinosaur oil (regular oil) out of the engine at about the 500 mile point and change it over to a fully synthetic oil. Why? Because dinosaur oil has to have polymers added to make it multi-viscous (spelled wrong) ie...5W-30. When oil comes out of the ground, it is 30 weight or 50 weight or whatever it happens to be. When the polymers are added to the dinosaur oil, you now have multi-viscous oil. Polymers stick together making the oil thicker. It's this sticking together that causes the problem. If you take two engines with 100,000 miles each on them....one ran with the polymers and the other using fully synthetic oil, the synthetic oil engine on the inside will look practically brand new. The dinosaur oil engine will have this black jelly looking substance sticking all over the inside of the engine. This black jelly is the polymers that are stuck together. These polymers reduce the diameter of the oil galleys running throughout the engine and after a while, they can block oil passageways. Not all the time, but it does happen. Spun bearings and piston skirt wear are commom issues. Why does synthetic oil not have this problem? No polymers are added. From the very beginning, the engineers know what weight oil they are shooting for and add just the right amount of different chemicals to get the weights they need. Hope this helps some.

[Versa Madness]

^^Very nice write up and info. Thanks for your input!

[Theonlyexpert]

Hello, I just leased a brand new 2008 Altima Coupe 3.5. I didnt know about the break in period and my dealer said it's not an issue and that I could "spin off right after I get begind the wheel". Well I didn't exactly spin off, but I did rev it a bit over 4,000rpms a couple of times on my way home which was about an hour drive. Is this enough to cause any damage or engine power loss?

How likely that I did any damage during this short time? Thank you, IM

[Theonlyexpert]

...

[KimberKenobi]

Problem #1 would be that you are asking a question about an Altima to a bunch of Versa drivers...

Problem #2 would be that you seem to expect an instantaneous response... from people who are not necessarily mechanically inclined.

To answer your question, some people believe redlining it right away helps to seal thing and seat things in the engine, some people believe you should follow all the break-in directions to the letter for the entire break-in period...

I followed all the rules to the letter on my first Versa, and I drove how I normally drive on my second Versa. The first Versa got better mpg much sooner than the second Versa and without me having to up the inflation in the tires. (though my dealer was running 38 psi in the first Camel).

That is what I know. I also know that you are driving an Altima and the break-in rules may be different for your car and I cannot view your manual because I have a Versa, not an Altima...

[Ever Victorious]

Actually, the break-in rules are the same for both cars. Usually a manufacturer will use a single set of break in rules, or at most, one set for passenger cars and another for SUVs and trucks.

The answer to this question can be a very anecdotal, personal-basis answer. I've never owned a new car long enough to actually "find out" the answer for myself, but I tend to err on the side of caution and follow the manufacturer's reccommendations, just in case.

Then again, I rarely race my car, and when I do, it's just an autocross on a controlled track.