BobsGX

The first free service from the dealer can be done anytime you want. I get it done at about 1,000 miles.

Gekko

1. oil may be old that sat in new car since production.
2. initial new engine run - first 2k miles - may create more abrasive debris which should be flushed early.

linh811

geez do lexus owners ever drive their cars to the ground? i literally burned rubber pulling out of the dealer lot and have done this on every new car purchse. never had an engine wear problem before it was time for trade in

Gekko

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i like to drive/keep my cars for 135k+ miles. that's how you get rich.

hapaboy

bichon is correct. 1000 kill-o-meters! no sudden stops to slosh the gasoline around, etc. i suppose.....

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

break in procedures are designed so your car seals good and gets better numbers in a compression test, burns less oil, makes more power/mileage

break in isnt going to determine engine durability

15951

My car has 200 miles on it now, and I have to admit to...er...rapid acceleration, once or twice.

Think about what new cars go through during test drives. Also consider that the 11 miles or so on my car when I picked it up (special order) probably weren't from a calm drive around the block.

The break in period is also a bit arbitrary. If the car was an American vehicle, the break in would probably be about 1,000 miles. There would be people here having fits at others for flooring it at 900 miles, which apparently is ok with the ISx50 because metric is its first language.

Lets Drive

iTrader: (3)

Yeah, for the most part you just drive it like normal; constantly varying the RPM/load, with quick bouts of acceleration and deceleration, bringing it up to temp, then letting it cool. With my last engine build, I kept the RPMs around or under 3-4k, then raised to brief periods of 5k, while letting the car decelerate in gear (never boosting, but allowing vacuum). I ran non-synthetic during the break-in, changed the oil at 500 miles, again at 1000 miles, and finally settled into the usual 2,500 mile intervals, by which piont I'd changed to synthetic.

To be honest though, if everything is in the interest of longevity, and needs to be specific, I don't understand why car makes neglect to emphasize engine hours as the standard for measurement, which would be far more accurate than miles. A car which spends most of its time in city traffic could see engine operation for 3+ hours, and drive less than 20 miles, while another vehicle, traveling by highway with less traffic, can travel a distance of 40 miles within 30 minutes. The miles covered alone don't say much about which engine is seeing more wear.

Bichon

Most car manufacturers take the type of usage into account and provide two maintenance schedules, one for "normal service", and another for "severe service" that takes into account the extra wear of city driving or operating the vehicle on dusty roads.

Using hours as a gauge is not terribly accurate, since there is a big difference between an hour crusing lazily down the highway, an hour spent in traffic, and an hour spent at the drag strip or track.

Rather than using miles or hours, there is a technological solution, used by BMW is their newer cars. The computer takes into account vehicle usage and driving style, dynamically calculates the ervice interval, and displays progress through it with a series of green, amber and red lights. I suspect that Lexus and their dealers wouldn't like that system, since it generally results in significantly longer intervals than their extremely conservative 5,000 mile fixed intervals.

CeoStatus0

I may be buying out of state and the drive back is a 12hr drive with 700miles...duriung the drive there will be a couple sections of going up high elevations and going down.. like going through (Highway 5 South) to LA and even more up hill going on the (Highway 10) through AZ

speed limit zones of 75-80.... I'm thinking i may be pushing it too hard if i do a 12hr drive straight... if it was more flat land driving i wouldn't really be that concerned but it is gonna push it... also a good amount of the drive will have just 2 lanes in each direction.. and there are a lot of semi's/ large trucks on the road.. and if i need to make a pass i would have to push it plus while driving up to high elevations

should i be worried?

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

I've been building engines for street and competition for about 26 years. "Going easy on it" is a surefire way to make the manufacturer happy. Why? The rings will never seat properly, and the engine will die an earlier death. How do I know? LOTS of engines.

Break-in easy? Lower compression numbers. More oil migration above the rings, more carbon build up above the top ring land, LESS POWER.

Break-in with specific procedure? Higher compression numbers, cleaner pistons, almost no carbon above the top ring land, and MORE POWER.

Break-in has nothing to do with rpm, and everything to do with thermal load. The piston is either cast or forged, and both of these processes leave the metal's crystalline structure a little bit jumbled. The way to resolve these cast or forged in stresses is to gradually heat the piston over a number of increasing thermal cycles with a cooling period in between each stress cycle to allow the piston to resize itself and the metal's grain structure to take a set.

All engines need a break-in period, but the duration of that period and how it is accomplished vary quite a bit.

Click here for an example of what I mean. This particular car made significantly more power than the typical C-5 Corvette. The owner is a friend of mine, and used my break-in procedure. It is also the same procedure used by this guy and he came to the same conclusions I reached for the same reasons. It works. Better than anything the factory recommends.

AFA the brakes - you just need to bed in the pads. If you know how to bed in brake, just do it, and you're good. You can do it in about 10 minutes if you know what you're doing. The pads and rotors will love you for it, and they'll last a whole lot longer. Click here for theory and instructions.

Bichon

Guess nobody told the engine in my old Accord, broken in according to Honda's recommendations. After five trouble-free years, I sold it to a friend that ran it up to nearly 250,000 miles before he got rid of it, and even at that mileage he didn't need to add oil between changes.

onihc

iTrader: (1)

Yes, absolutely!! Your engine will blow unless you use non metallic tint.
Just joking

Your car will be fine. You did not buy a piece of crap that will fall apart, did you? My personal break in procedure was driving normal. Drive like how you would normally drive on public roads.

golfproatl

It's better than all flat driving. You don't want to set your cruise control. It is more important to not travel large distances at the same RPM while breaking in. I know 700 miles will be tough. I would at least change you speed setting every 30 miles at least. If it where my car, I would not set it at all and have fun driving it back.

As another poster said. Just dive it normal. Just not the same speed for fthe first 500-1000 miles!!

Congrats and enjoy!

Bichon

The nice thing about the paddles is that you can change engine rpm and load without speeding up and slowing down like a lunatic and road hazard. Just shift down from 6th to 5th or even 4th periodically in order to vary things.