There is a good possibility that I may buy my Challenger out-of-state. I, however, was concerned that driving for 5-6 hours at a constant speed of 60-70 mph would be bad for the engine break-in. Most manuals say vary the speed for the first 250 mph.

Tonight, the SRT engineers were on the SRT Cherokee forum. I asked them if it would be okay to make this type of a drive with a new 6.1, or should the car be trailored.

They responded as follows: "Take an easy cruise, it should be no issue. No WOTs please."

Well...it looks that you guys will be seeing a new Hemi-Orange Challenger SRT driving north on I-95 in January 2009!

 

Yeah....not sure about all...but it seems break in periods and that whole concept is beginning to dissipate.....the last two cars I got had no official break in period....which smacked of odd to me.....of course, I used to think of the break in period of don't rev too high w/i the first 500 miles or something...then my mind would drift to test drives where the salesmen if present would say "Step on the gas pretty hard and see what kind of acceleration this baby'll do"........hmmm...so how many test drives were taken on cars that needed a break in where the salesman instructed the same advice to help sell the car and what if any recourse befell these automobiles?

Oddly enough I'll be taking a similar pilmigrage.....either 95 or 81........in January-March '09......as soon as the 6 spds are available.....!

 

the rule of thumb seems to be 500 or 1000 miles, but some newer cars will state a certain break in period...but in the same way, some cars come with no break in. im pretty sure that the new Z06 has no break in, as the engine has already had a given number of hours of run time...

1000 miles will be tough for me...we dont go very far when we do leave the house. i dont think that ive put 1000 miles on a single one of my cars in the last year.

 

[quote]ORIGINAL: DamnSkippy

Yeah....not sure about all...but it seems break in periods and that whole concept is beginning to dissipate.....the last two cars I got had no official break in period.

Apparently there is still a break-in period. The SRT guys said no WOT.

 

WOT?

Mirada....Not 1000 miles in the year....that's nice! I put 500 every week just in commute...

 

WOT= Wide Open Throttle (i.e., driving like you stole it!)

 

500 miles break in pffff. If its going to break its going to break whether 1 mile or 500. If its built right it wont break.

 

But Mirada, you have like 22 cars or something.

 

> 500 miles break in pffff. If its going to break its going to break whether 1 mile or 500. If its built right it wont break.

It's actually not about the motor breaking, but getting the parts to mesh together and establish wear patterns and smooth off any rougher edges in the manufacturing. You have all kinds of metal to metal contact (pistons, rings, valves, cam, etc etc) that are not super smooth and polished when they rub together - these parts need some time at slower speeds and lower temperature to wear together. If you start by doing a lot of high speed or WOT activities, you force a lot of friction and heat early on and force the contacting parts to either melt (very slightly) or break off in ways that cause unnatural wear in the future. I've even had a mechanic friend tell me not to run synthetic in the motor for the first 20,000 miles to let the parts break in properly, then switch over and run synthetic for life. It actually worked like a charm for my 350 in my GMC truck, it runs great after 11 years and 108,000 miles and never has eaten any oil.

Haven't you ever had your breaks done and been told to take it easy for the first 100 miles to let the 2 contact surfaces wear together? It's kind of the same thing, you need them to wear together for a bit before you test them hard.

Given I'm going to want to keep my new Challenger a very long time, I'd prefer to get it from the factory before anyone messes with it and baby it for that first set of miles. Then I'll open it up a bit

 

If you expect an engine to run hard, you must break it in hard!! Read this before you say that I'm wrong:

www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

PS: I break them in hard - lots of full throttle to high revs, then back down against compression, then after 5,000 miles Amsoil to lock in that performance for the long haul!!


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