Hi all,

I just got my car last week!! It's a white with

- 6MT
- OEM Kit (no spiler)
- Fog Light

I love my car a lot and I can't even sleep without going to my garage and seeing the car once in a while. Everytime I look at it I will have a smile =)

I have a question about break-in, hope you guys can help me out.

I read articles that say I should not go over 3500 for the first 100 miles and then I should slowly move my rpm up and up (no full accelerate) and I should change my oil after 1000 miles.

But my dealer told me since year 2001, all engine are broken in and there will be "no" metal chips at all. And if I change my oil at 1000 miles, this will void the warrenty! The dealer said I should change my oil after 6000 km. He said the oil inside helps to break in the car properly and I will be fine as long as I don't do any crazy drive.

Ar...so what should I? Should I merge 2 of the strategy together by keeping it low rpm until about 5000km and then slowly move up, so once I'm at 6000km, I can change the oil?

What I'm worry about is the metal chips that will fly all over my engine if I go over 3500 rpm too early.

Any suggestion? Thanks!

 

Let me say I clean fucking forgot about every part of the break-in except for the "let it warm up" part and got a ticket for going 92 MPH the night I picked mine up. I let the AT do the shifting, but I wouldn't be surprised if I hit 4500 or 5000 RPM without really thinking about it. So if I have metal chips flying all over my engine, well, there aren't any symptoms yet, anyway.

My dealer told me 5,000 and 10,000 miles for the oil changes, and every 10,000 after. I got it changed at 5,628, and the guy at that dealership confirmed that it was supposed to be 5,000. Edit: And the dealer who sold it to me said the first couple changes (or was it just the first change?) should be at an Acura dealership because they use some special oil to help the engine break in, yadda yadda. The guy at the next one gave me his sales pitch and said I should always get it changed at his dealership.

 

let me just tell you that the old myth about metal chips or whatever is totally false. no car has ever had that. changing your oil wouldnt help anyway even if there were any metal particles large enough to do anything to your engine because that is what the oil filters job is.
the very first place the oil goes in any car is through the pump and into the filter. the filter is designed to filter out anything large enough to cause any problems.

now as for the oil, acura/honda use a special breakin oil. it is supposed to be left in there for 7500 miles. it has a higher detergent content than regular oil and also helps promote the breakin period. i belive if you read your owners manuel it says exactly what the break in procedure is. follow that information to the letter if your worried about it.
reguardless of what anyone tells you here read the manuel! honda wrote it knowing far more about your engine than anyone here knows.
dont assume just because someone says you need to do this or that, just follow the instructions and you will be fine.
personally i wasnt all that worried about it. you have to keep in mind that a large majority or new car owners never follow these instructions anyway. they race their car the day they get it. if it was going to cause any severe damage dont you think there would be a lot more posts about people having engine problems on their new cars?

hell even people who buy a FORD dont have any problems right after a new car purchase.
why would you be worried about a honda?

 

Thanks for the advices!

I understand honda have very good engine but I just want to be safe..hehe

I did a lot of researches on the net as I love my car so much =)

So I read that the reason why you don't want to go over 3500 rpm early is because usually, metal chips are created when the engine is new, and because of that; you will get a lot of friction which means a lot of heat. And those heat if build up too early will damage the engine.

And the filiter will do a job to filter all big pieces of metal chips, but some small ones might go in and will do damage to your engine.

And also, don't do safe-driving by going under 3500 rpm all the time because the engine must get a feel on the high rpm that.

Damn...Change oil early will void the warrenty, change oil later might not do good on the engine as I need to do high rpm to let the engine feel the power but on the other hand, I might have small metal chips that might not be good for the engine.

I guess I just love this car toooo much and I want the engine to break in very nicely .....

Thanks,

 

Whats a spiler??


On a serious note- Break in is mostly a myth. Yea, you will smell the catylyter converters burning off some new car dust, but for the most part keep it some what conservative for the first 50 to 100 miles.
Conservative=under 4000 RPM

 

Changing the oil early does not void the warranty.

 

Why kind of research did you do? Metal chips? There are tons of sites out there that explain exactly what happens in the break in period. The only thing that I can tell you is that you reading bad information. Follow the instructions in your manual. Stay away from the sites that you have been reading and you will do fine.

 

The only advice regarding engine break-in that has ever made any sense to me is to not run the engine at constant speed for a long time. Keeping it below nnnn RPM for the first while seems silly. The engine has almost certainly been redlined many times during testing before it was dropped into the car. You probably don't want to thrash the sh*t out of it right away, but periodic runs up to the redline are just fine. You won't do the engine any favours by babying it. My opinion is that you want to run the engine at a variety of speeds and loads during the early stages in order to help the rings to seat better.

Anecdotally, I can offer the experience of a friend of mine who dropped a really nice rebuilt 327 into his Camaro and immediately took it on a 2000 mi road trip at near-constant speed. End result was a cooked engine that burned oil like crazy. Could have been a bad rebuild, but I'm inclined to believe it was a ring problem caused by improper break-in.

 

I agree.... I did not break in my 94 GSR when I bought it new and have had zero issues with the engine. I think i redlined it right out of the dealership.