The TSB specifies "replace transmission if needed" I guess his car needed it or they've now decided to just change em all anyway.

 

That's what they been doing as a couple other members reported before me.
Not like the TL mess. No fixing nothing here.
They "inspect" the case number (RCL-1/RCL-2) , RCL-1 = New tranny from Jpn.

 

So, do all of you wise automobile enthusiasts out there fully endorse the procedure quoted by ClutchPerformer at the start of this thread?

• Even the part about full-throttle bursts? Even though my 2005 TSX manual, at page 152, specifically warns against "full-throttle starts and rapid acceleration"? (Actually, I can see how this statement is not inconsistent with the instructions in this thread; I just want to make sure.)
• And it really is okay to go all the way up to redline during the break-in period (as long as it's under light throttle, as instructed)?
• And why does the manual specifically say (on the same page), "do not change the oil until the scheduled maintenance time"? I too would have thought that it would be good to get the break-in crap out of there sooner. Or do they actually want the metal particles in there causing some added wear for a while? (Same reason as not using synthetic oil for a while?)

Thanks in advance to those who reply to calm my fears.

Chad

 

• I wouldn't worry too much about it. I know when replacing piston rings and valve seals, they say to rev it to redline, let it coast down, then back up, back down, back up, back down, then drive for a while at varying speeds (about 500-1000km). Short bursts shouldn't hurt IMO.
  
• See my first point. Redline recommended by many professionals (helps heat the walls and rings enough to properly "mate" them, or seat them together.)
  
• Don't change it until recommended, because the particles help create heat, from my 2nd point. Helps shave the walls and rings down just enough to work 100% efficiently from then onwards.

Just my opinion but I've researched this a lot before (like 1.5 years ago when I rebuilt my Integra engine)

~Eric

 

Interesting!

 

Thank Eric. Anyone else care to comment while I still have only 150km on the car? Do all of the rest of you endorse the procedure quoted by ClutchPerformer at the start of this thread?

 

Although not religiously, I did follow that procedure. 12K mi. so far and it runs great and I get good gas mileage (27MPG combined, 33MPG highway).

 

i thought 30k miles was a barely broken in honda engine??

 

taking long trips during break in is quite fine. change up speeds a gears a little. no difference

 

On the subject of when or if to change the oil at the start of the engine's life, I wrote to Acura and asked them about the discrepancy between auto enthusiasts, who suggest changing the oil soon to get rid of the metal particles from break-in, and the manual, which specifically instructs the owner to delay the first oil change until the first regularly-scheduled change. Here is the answer I got back:

 

This is great

I am currently at 1300 miles......I don't quite understand the 500-3000 miles part
at 500-3000 miles = do not pass 4500rpm during regular driving? and is it ok to cruise at 80mph? and high rev for a few times XD?

 

I'm on the fence with how to break-in an engine. I've read about both methods. I'd like to see if their is any correlation between those that have cars that use oil, and breaking in the engine lightly vs hard. If most TSX's that don't consume any oil were broken in by the "full throttle short burst method", there might be something to it. I mixed it up. I hit 4k rpms the first 5k miles, then gradually went higher as I approached 1k miles. I put 600 miles on it in 2 days.

 

glad somebody bumped this thread, i have a question to ask for a friend. My friend got the new Jetta a month or so ago, and despite my warnings, he routinely floored it for the first few weeks he had it. Now he is getting about 16MPG regularly as his average mileage and he refuses to believe that his rough break-in was a factor. This is when he drives like an old man btw, going the speed limit and accelerating very slowly. Is he right, or is this probably due to the rough break in?

 

Can someone explain how I am breaking in anything by flooring the car in top gear at higher speeds. I've been around cars a long time...this makes no sense. Your putting huge strain on the tranny, while the engine (if it would talk) is thinking..boy this guy's dumb! I completely agree with giving light to medium load and holding the gear to a higher rpm because that is allowing the oil to move around and moving parts to actually "break in". I've seen other threads saying not to change the oil until the 8,000km mark - I'm going to wait and comply as Honda as responded to queries regarding waiting on the 1st oil change by saying it is strongly recommended. I also like the idea of, at about 1000km, of taking the car to 70km/h and then pushing the car to get the rpms up.

 

by flooring it at top gear you are putting a large strain on the engine. Have you ever installed a piston ring before? They have some springyness to them, but not much. Certainly not enough to hold in the thousands of pounds of force inside the combustion chamber when it is firing. So technically, it is not the piston ring springyness that holds in the pressure, so what is? What is it that causes the rings to seal with the cylinder walls so well? What it is, is the pressure inside the combustion chamber itself. This pressure forces its way behind the piston ring and causes it to push outward towards the cylinder walls and thus allowing it to hold the pressure in. The piston rings are cast iron, and when are made, are made rough still, usually to score the sides of the cylinder walls and thus get a good seal. By putting a large strain on the engine, you are allowing this pressure to force the piston rings out on the cylinder walls harder and thus allowing them to seal well when the engine is first born. What most people don't know is that Acura engines are run at the factory, and is mostly broken in there. While the process described in the beginning of this thread is pretty ACURAte (heh, sometimes I kill myself), it doesn't really apply to new Acura engines, and most other luxury car engines as well, like Lexus. Don't get me wrong, following that process might actually help some for your new Acura, but not nearly as much as an engine that truly has not been broken in. Overall, I might follow these instructions "somewhat", however I'm pretty sure it will not have that much of an effect as most would think.

 

So basically, to keep the rpms low or from going above say 4,000 the first 200 miles, flooring it while in 5th or 6th gear @ 2k rpms until 3.5k rpms would be putting sufficient? My caution was always trying to avoid over reving the engine the first 500 miles, but yet WOT on occasion to help seat the rings. I guess the method described above does that without over reving.

 

how do you floor it at 2.5k w/o making pas 3.5k rpms??? wouldnt that exceed it easily

 

Floor it at 2000 then. If you have an AT make sure its in SS mode so it doesn't downshift for you when you floor it.

 

Easily. Don't do it in first. Read the original post: "Use full throttle in short (2-3 second) bursts at low rpms (say 2500) - 5th gear on the freeway is ideal for this." Since you only want about 2 seconds of this, it won't go up past 3500.

By the way, I followed the procedure outlined in the first post as closely as possible, and I'm up to about 3000km now. So far everything is working nicely, my gas mileage is improving (to be expected as any engine loosens up), and I don't appear to be burning oil, so, whether it helped or not I don't know, but I don't think it hurt.

 

Im getting my new tsx on saturday...and then on sunday i have to drive it up 4 hours to school. If i take it on this long trip would it ruin the engine cause nothing is broken in. I read all the posts about the short 15 min trips and so on, but i do need to bring the car up. So what should i do about that.

 

What I'd highly recommend in your situation is to run it quite hard for the first few minutes (literally right off the lot after it warms up). Search for the breakin threads on this board - posts by myself (curls) and aarong will advocate this method.

Once you run it in this way a few times right after getting the keys, the idea is to never stay at a constant RPM for more than a few minutes. If you have a 6MT, then just switch between 4, 5, and 6 while on the highway, every 5-10 minutes. If you have an AT, then use sport-shift mode between 4 and 5 every 5-10 minutes. Do this for the first 500 or so miles, if its all highway. Otherwise, city driving is fine AFTER you've used the hard breakin ("mototune" method - http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm)

Cheers,
Eric

 

Andy, you're not going to ruin your engine. Just do something like curls suggests, vary engine RPM's, don't stay at one RPM for too long and you'll be fine.

I purchased my car with seven miles on it from a dealer 300 miles from home. So, my first extended drive was a 300 mile freeway drive. I did like above, and have had zero issues with my motor. Modern engines are made to very tight tolerances, and Honda engines are among the best.

Good luck.

 

my 2006 tsx already has 2000 miles on it and i have been constantly driving on highway putting it on cruise control at 75mph. right now, the reading says that there's 60% life oil engine left. so should i go change my engine oil now or should i wait until the reading goes down to 0%?

since i didn't do the break in, what can i do to improve the engine since its already at 2000 miles mark?

 

You should leave the oil in the engine until 5,000 miles for the first oil change. What "reading" did you get that it tells you there are 60% of oli left? Electronic is great, but the old-fashion dip stick is still more reliable. If the mark is too low, you could top it off with some oil.

 

What about preparations before driving? Should the car be started up and left running for a few to the let engine warm up even if the car is new? I've never had a new car before, and actually never before bothered warming up any car I've ever owned before driving it. I always thought that was something that really only needed to be done in extremely cold weather.

 

You don't want to let the car idle to warm up. Wastes gas and the transmission won't warm up.

Let it run for 30 seconds or so, then take off, taking it easy until the motor reaches operating temp. That way the entire drivetrain gets a chance to warm up.

 

You want to run it long enough to get the oil circulated throughout the engine. Once that happens (my guess is 30sec. is plenty long) then you can go. However, I'd go easy on it (no redline shifts) until you see the temperature gauge go up to normal temp.

 

The reading is on the dashboard.

 

I must be out of the loop. Is that new on the '06?

 

Never drove an 05, so I don't know if it's new in 06. But yes, you can scroll through the dashboard menu including outside temperature, oil life, range, instant mpg, etc..

 

Yes, this is new on the 06.

 

Cool.

I'll have to read some threads every now and then.

 

I think I did go over 3500 rpms in the first 100 miles of the car should I be concerned.

 

Just wanted to say great article! I took it and wrote this condensed version that fits on a half page to put in my car. It will remind you of the break in and let you keep track of it, so I thought I should share in case anyone else wants this "condensed" version.

PDF:
http://216.73.104.119/Engine%20Break...0Condensed.pdf

Word:
http://216.73.104.119/Engine%20Break...0Condensed.doc

 

thorium, this is excellent. I've already printed a copy. Thanks! I'll be picking my baby up in about two weeks . Can't wait to break her in, and even moreso, get past the break in!

 

You may want to edit that to account for the fact that our car has 6 gears.

page 4

 

Sorry, I'm buying an automatic Thats why I provided PDF and a Word file -- you can edit the Word file yourself to whatever you want it to be.

 

Well I'll be the ultimate experimentor in this kind of scenerio, as I had almost 2000 miles on it before I had even owned it 4 days. Due to some unforseen circumstances (I was to take my mom's car to Austin, but then couldn't, and that it took an extra 4 days to get the car than I originally had hoped), I had to get the car and then pretty much immediatly drive it from Jacksonville to Tampa, then Tampa to Jacksonsville, and then Jacksonville, FL to Austin, TX. So I tried to vary my speed as much as I reasonably could on the interstate during the first 500 miles and trying to be smooth on it with a few burts, and drove it around the city as much as I could while I was in Tampa for 2 days, but yeah, probably still not the best scenerio to break in a car.

 

If you were to give it a few full rpm blasts in the first 15-25 miles, then cool. Also, varying the cars' speed isn't important - varying the RPM is (changing from 4th to 5th to 6th but keeping car speed constant or thereabouts).

 

I've read several articles that state engines today don't need any sophisticated break-in and that they are already broken in from the factory. Any truth to that? I followed most of that list except I drove it around too much when I first got it. I didn't follow the 15 min rule. I also didn't floor it as often as I should have. I did vary the rpm though.

*My car uses about 1/2qt of oil every 5k miles. Runs great. 34k miles on it.