My new Rogue is in its 1200 mile break in period. When I try to vary my speed on highway trips, the damn computer has its agenda and wants to lock the engine RPMs in a pretty narrow range (e.g. ~2600 in sport mode, ~1800 in auto), even though the car is doing anywhere from 55 to 70. With a traditional 4 speed automatic, once it got into top gear the engine RPM varied directly with the wheel rotation speed.

Is engine break-in really important?

Once you're cruising the tranny will generally lock up and you'll never see much RPM change unless the load on the engine rises substantially -- and on the newer stuff with CVT trannies, "cruising" can be 25 mph as long as the load is steady. So varying speed on the highway is tough without some hills. The good news is, break-in isn't really critical like it used to be. Machining tolerances are vastly better than even 15 years ago, the newest break-in coatings are fabulous, and the oil itself is vastly better. Ring adhesion is virtually unheard of, even when people smoke their new tires right out of the dealer lot. So should you try to vary your speed? Sure. Is how much you vary it going to make much difference? Very, very little. It isn't 1969 anymore, or even 2000.

Here’s my real life experience having owned 4 brand new Nissans. My 03 Altima never had any of the pre cat destruction, oil burning issues and I drove it like normal from day 1.
My 09 Altima WAS broken in per the manual and burnt a qt every 1500 miles, which was a ring issue and I eventually just replaced the engine with a low mileage yard motor. My son drives the car to this day and uses no oil.
My wifes 2018 rogue was a lease that I didn’t plan on keeping till Covid and used car prices changed all that. I didn’t break it in, in fact its first 500 miles was doing 80 on a road trip. I changed the oil the first time at the recommended 5k. It uses no oil and is bulletproof @ 70k.
My 21 Altima was broken in to the letter, I changed the oil at 800 miles then again at 2k. It uses no oil either.
Conclusion,,it doesn’t matter imo.

I’d be more concerned changing the tranny fluid every 20k and the diff fluids as well. I waited till 40k on my wife’s rogue to do both and shouldn’t have. The cvt fluid was bad but the gearbox fluid looked like pudding.

D1dad wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 23, 2023 5:42 am

Here’s my real life experience having owned 4 brand new Nissans. My 03 Altima never had any of the pre cat destruction, oil burning issues and I drove it like normal from day 1.
My 09 Altima WAS broken in per the manual and burnt a qt every 1500 miles, which was a ring issue and I eventually just replaced the engine with a low mileage yard motor. My son drives the car to this day and uses no oil.
My wifes 2018 rogue was a lease that I didn’t plan on keeping till Covid and used car prices changed all that. I didn’t break it in, in fact its first 500 miles was doing 80 on a road trip. I changed the oil the first time at the recommended 5k. It uses no oil and is bulletproof @ 70k.
My 21 Altima was broken in to the letter, I changed the oil at 800 miles then again at 2k. It uses no oil either.
Conclusion,,it doesn’t matter imo.

Thats good info.
I am at 700 miles now on my new Armada have bene following traditional break in procedures to the letter and am itching to give that 400 hp, 32 valve V8 "the beans" as they say.
It wasnt until 700 miles that it saw its first excursion past 4000 rpm.
Varied he speed a lot and coasted down from speed to help the rings seat, but car burns no oil at all right now despite high temps on thin factory oil and road trips (without any use of cruise) in summertime temps.

If I had the money invested you do Palmer, I’d break that sucker in to a T. Don’t sweat the 0w20. My son in laws work Chevy has close to 400k on 0w20 pulling a fully loaded 22 ft tool trailer and uses negligible oil. They say you don’t need to change oil early but I did and probably would again.

Call me pessimistic but for a turbo charged 3 cylinder (I think that's what all the new Rogues are if I remember correctly)...

---we are in such uncharted territory that I'm not sure doing a break in period will make a difference. I do like to baby my new vehicles for the first 1500 miles. For my Toyotas, I even change the oil at the first 500 miles. But those are naturally aspirated and port injected with no turbo and plan to keep them for 400,000 miles.

A turbo charged 3 cylinder? Man, I don't know it it will last more than 80,000 miles no matter what you do.

RickFlorida wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 25, 2023 12:08 pm

A turbo charged 3 cylinder? Man, I don't know it it will last more than 80,000 miles no matter what you do.

We've already seen several KR20's in gen6 Alties cruise past 100K without issues, and the KR15 in the gen3 Rogue is just 3/4 of a KR20 with a 120 degree crank. Vertical triples actually have fewer harmonic issues than L4's (in fact, a lot fewer), so frankly, I'm just not expecting major problems.

Okay good. Well, it can't hurt to treat it well and maintain it. Lots of oil changes, drain and refill the CVT, PTU (if you got one), etc......

RickFlorida wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 25, 2023 12:31 pm

Okay good. Well, it can't hurt to treat it well and maintain it. Lots of oil changes, drain and refill the CVT, PTU (if you got one), etc......

+1
That never hurts.

Definitely the transfer case early. My 2018 @40k looked like mud water. The rear diff looked fine. I’m gonna do the 21s cvt here at the next oil change which would be 30k. Also don’t go off of the 10k oil change recomendation. I change all my cars at 5k, sometimes sooner in cold Ohio winters. I just did an oil analysis on my wife’s 2018 @70k and it was one of the best I’ve ever seen. All her cars ever had, for the most part, is valvoline maxlife synthetic. Not that it needed high mileage oil, I just scored a lifetime of it for $1 a quart. I have used Mobil 1 a time or two for the different ad pack to maybe clean a galley or two but saw no difference in the condition of the oil when I drained it. Minus the early pre cat issues and a defective engine here and there, Nissan really has their chit together when it comes to engines. Cvts, are a hit and miss but Nissans pretty much extended many of their warranties to compensate.

I’ve been blessed to have been given use of a brand new truck every three years up until about 4 years ago. Of all those trucks, I only “broke in” one gently and it turned into a POS. All the others I drove normally and changed the factory fill at 1500 miles. Chevy, Dodge, and Ford.

I even towed a heavy grain vac with my brand new 2014 F150 when it had about 800 miles on it for 150 miles.

Break in procedures are an issue from the 90’s and earlier.

After changing the oil early in my 21 I’ll be doing that going forwards on any new car I buy. With current interest rate though I don’t see that happening. I was amazed at how much assembly lube and shavings I got out. I’m kicking myself for not doing the cvt yet, but have had no issues doing them around the 30-40k mark. Nissan also recommends brake fluid flushes every 20k which I do every 40k. Hell, I sent cars to scrapyards with the original fluid and never an issue. Maybe if Nissan was as worried about cvt fluid as much as they are brakes, they’d have less issues.

The first car I ever did was on my 2016 Rogue. Now I use a turkey baster to empty the reservoir every oil change and replace it that way. It’s not possible on every car though.

My 19 Rogue will get a brake fluid refresh when I change the pads.

I do the same with the power steering fluid as well.