when i hit 25,000 miles last week, i realized that my 2004 TL has finally reached the ideal level as far as overall ride, performance, and feel is concerned. everything seems to be working at an even keel where it is nicely balanced. have i reached the Zen level as far as this car is concerned...or maybe i am just losing it?

 

To be honest, I think you are on to something here. Assuming a good sense of maintenance, I think the car should be more broken in (positively speaking) after several thousand of miles (10-20+).

 

So you all are speaking of breaking in at 20k + miles... well what about after the break in period when you first get the car? I'm speaking in terms of the 600 mile mark. Because that's what is considered break in period as well. So what is the difference? Surely you don't have to wait until 20k miles in order to take off a lil quicker while at a light or whatever? This is the case?

 

The first break in period (600 miles) is to just make sure you don't run the car at the same RPM for long periods of time, and to not engage in harsh braking (couple hundred miles will suffice here). The "other" break in period (tens of thousands of miles) is just the general tendency for the car to feel more "responsive" in terms of performance, feel, and ride.

 

I asked a tech guy about this 'break in' period. He described it to me as this.

It is more getting the Transmission gears 'smoothed' into your way of driving.

If you can imagine the gears being brand new, they have no 'grooves' or whatever you want to call them, showing how you personally like to drive. So by 'breaking in' the car it is more getting the tranny used to the way that you shift. How hard you push on the gas etc.

Kinda made sense to me at the time.

 

oh ok i understand. So the initial break in (600 miles) is just for caution purposes and to make sure you don't over due anything by it being a new vehicle, etc... And the other break in is getting the car use to how "you" drive, etc...

 

ahh how fascinating, but if you are a lead foot even if the tranny adjusts to you, wont the tranny also have a shorter life span?

 

Well the way I look at it is like this.

Cars, Hard Drives and basically ANYTHING that moves is bound for fail at some time.

Kind of like once you are born you are bound to die theory.


So I am not worried about what I consider to be normal wear and tear.

Btw that is me.

 

Honda engines can take many miles to reach their homeostatic engineering design - while all engines, and indeed, most auto mechanical sub-systems as well, take a while to "bed-in", Honda's are notorious. The S2000 owner, for example, is warned against using synthetic oil for 10,000 miles!

Look at those long-term car tests if you think this is bunk. Nearly every car I have ever examined shows significantly better acceleration after 30k miles than when it was new. *

This is almost entirely due to reductions in frictional loss. Rather than being lost as heat, the full power potential of the engine is realized. But other areas become "better" because they act more precisley - for example, as the fuel injecotr pintles become smoother, the can start and stop a bit better, and perform their tasks closer to the perfection of their original design.

Yes, gears, pumps, cam lobes, fuel injector pintles, etc. all can get better with some age and use on them - of course, after a while, like people, there is what we call in Engineering parlance a "knee" - the point on the curve where things begin to drop off in terms of function. So where a piston ring can be freely sliding up and down at 30k, it can become loose (and lose compression and oil control) at 100k.

*Not all systems become better in those 30k tests - braking sometimes drops, those usually because of tire deterioration rather than braking system performance loss - this is supported by the commensurate drop in lateral acceleration performance - a few hundrdths of a 'g' drop is not unusual.

Call it karma if you want, but it is really just well-known mechanical principles bearing fruit.

 

Another thing that changes with age and mileage on a car is the suspension bushings. Generally they get less stiff with age, then toward the end of their life they tend to get play when the tolerances open up. What tends to happen is the joints get less stiction and friction with time and some folks claim the suspension has more feel after thousands of miles. Mostly this effect is on the rubber isolation bushings that attach the suspension control links to the chassis.

This is something that you feel through the steering wheel and seat of the pants. One of the area's that BMW spend a tremendous amount of time in is the design and selection of materials for their suspension bushings. Crucial to having the perfect compromise between road isolation damping and feeling the forces on the tires. Combination of design, material engineering and black science.

 

This is sorta related, a friend flys 767's internationally for Delta and he told me the same thing about when a 767 comes back from a major service (C-Check, D-Check,...). The feel of the control stick response is almost like a new aircraft after all the new cables are properly tensioned, pulley's lubricated, hydraulic actuators rebuilt/replaced....

 

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