I have seen a lot of posts about making sure not to "push" a new TL (or any car for that matter) during the first 500 to 1000 miles. Of course there's a risk that this happens when someone test drives the car you end up buying - salespeople demonstrating the cars abilities seem to be the worse sometimes at pushing the cars hard on the test drive. Anyway, I was wondering what the possible effect is (long term) of not breaking it in correctly. Premature engine problems/wear, tranny failure, etc? Just curious ...

 

Yes I have noticed the same predicament....
On my first visit/test drive at my local Acura dealer.. we took a 2001 TL-P out for test drive... he drove it like a F-18...:wow:
The car had a little over 300Km.. "It's a brand new car" he say's..
"Ummm.. I think I'll wait for 2002" I says...
Got my NEW 2002 with 11Km 's on it and I did a proper beark-in..
J

 

As long as the car has less than 10 miles on it you should be fine. I won't ever take delivery of a brand new car with more than 10 miles on it. There shouldn't be more than 10 miles on any new car. That's why dealers have demos. Some salepeople are ok. But like you said, some go crazy with the new cars.

 

I'm no brainiac but, driving the hell out of a product that is not broken in is BAD news.

Mainly, engines have various seals that need to settle and pistons have a lot of friction when new. Also, the valves, which say, look like CONTACT lenses, may not seat properly if the seals (seating points for valves) are slightly distorted.

End result, and most obvious, engine will likely burn oil around 50000mi, or something to that extent, rather than never burn oil.

Lastly, when an engine / transmission, for that matter, in theory, any MOVING part exists, small filings (microscopic fragments) are likely to exist in the setup. Since the product is brand new, it will have more filings at this point than at any other point through it's life. If and when those pieces end up in the engine oil and the motor is driven excessively/unnecessary hard during break-in, these filings can SCORE (scratch up) cylinder walls and then the engine will run rougher than desired / etc.