I understand your point, but you have to look at what the context is here.

We're not talking about performance claims. They wouldn't be able to get away with spreading that kind of information if it wasn't true. Car manufacturers, who have a stake in the reliability of their vehicle and car owners would have them in a law suit so fast they wouldn't know what hit them.

The motor oil industry is cut throat, and any claim they make has to be absolutely verifiable, or they'll be sued by automakers and/or competitors.

Put another way, they make this claim, while not one link can be found to a car maker stating otherwise.

 

DOES anyone out there know what the 'paddles' do and any advice on how to use them!!!!! Plus - maybe wrong forum - but I do not see 'bra's on any of these pics' - so far. Where can you get a bra for a good price and is it recommended!!!

 

What do you mean about the engine is pre-broken??? I'm new in this world and i have a fit and is my first car and i wanna improve it in all his capability; but that detail got me worried; could anyone explain me what does that mean?

 

wow...only 600 miles for a break in. You Honda owners have it made! My Mini Cooper S had a 1240 mile break in period, No rev'ing over 4k rpm's unless it was unavoidable. (Which i had to do a few times). But for the first 1240 miles i was pretty good. I figure the guys with PHD's in mechanical engineering have told me to use that mile marker as a break in period for a reason. So i think i'll place my money with the guys in the Lab coats, just to be on the safe side.

 

That's pretty cool, most manufacturers round their converted numbers like 1000km or 600mi, and 60,000mi or 100,000km; but your 1240 miles is just about dead on to 2000 km. Gotta love those German engineers

Eric

 

Maybe "blueprinting" means something different now, but the mechanics that have blueprinted my motors over the years took each component and measured it to make sure that it matched the engineering specs (the blueprints). I would guess that this would be difficult without disassembling the motor. Of course, pushing a motor past it's limits may be a quick way towards disassembling it.

Eric

 

When I picked up my Fit today, I asked the dealer about how to break the car in. He responded "just drive it." So, that's what I'm doing. Of course, I'll take it a little easy, but overall, I'm just driving it.

Has anyone gotten a burning clutch smell in the first few miles? I've never really had a car make that smell before...

 

its probably just the cleaner they put on the engine thats burning off

 

Many new vehicles have a strange odor the first 1000 miles or so.

 

This thread may have been beat to death already but since I am new - I will add my two cents

It's obvious from this thread that everyone has a different opinion on breaking in modern engines. Ask 10 people and you will get 10 different answers. I think most misconceptions are left over from an older time when engines were not built to the exact specifications that they are today. Back in the day, you had to give engines a proper break in to let all of the seals -seal and moving parts bed in properly. I just don't feel that's the case anymore.

Honda lists 600 miles, under 60 mph, and no cruise control as a safety factor. Remember, these are the same guys that recommend not changing to after market wheels, or non-Honda oil as it could affect the safety and reliability of the Fit. Ever beat the snot out of a test drive before? That car probably didn't have 600 miles yet. I would be willing to bet that that car went to someone and lived a long, service free life.

So am I saying pick up your Fit at the dealership with 20 miles on it and do a white smoky burnout out of the parking lot while tossing your manual at the service center and yelling, I don't give a F...!", all while performing a no throttle lift slam into second gear after bouncing off the rev limiter? NO, though that would be funny. Post a picture if you do.

Give the engine a few miles just to sleep better at night and get warm fuzzy feelings inside. Then drive the car. Have fun! Don't sweat the 600 miles! But hey, what do I know. Maybe I'll be on here in 6 month's with a broken engine complaining that nobody told me about the break in. But it hasn't happened yet in any of my new cars in spite of my heavy foot.

 

i like this guy ^^^

 

^^^ X2 haha

 

I just got my AT Fit today, drove it on the freeway to get home, kept it under 4k. Going to get oil/filter changed at 3000 miles.

 

Break In Secrets--How To Break In New Motorcycle and Car Engines For More Power

I have always used this method. Mainly use it on my bikes, but I will be using it on the Fit once I purchase it.

 

I broke my Fit in using the high rev method. I took is straight out to the highway and let her rip. When I got her she had 22 KM.

My daily commute is city then highway then city. I didn't really worry to much about the revs from the start. I was nervous but then I listen to the Honda ad ...and I giggle. (reeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvvvvv!!!)

But what made her happy? After 1000km I took her from Vancouver to Calgary on the Trans Canada. If you have driven it you know what thats about, If not...its a gradual climb to 4300 ft above sea level and then a fast ride down into Alberta. Its double lane with passing lanes every 10 to 20 km at the higher elevations. And when we were passing we were dropping her into 4th and putting the revs up to 4500 - 5500 easily when passing (I swear to god that 4500 + is the sweet zone in this car... it totally amazed me!). It was 60 L for the one way trip (DUDE!!!)

And I swear the engine is purring like a kitten with warm milk these days. Honda built this engine to rev and go hard. So push it hard.

Now shes at 5000+ km and the oil is at 40% but I think the adventure was a really really good thing for it. I'd go so far as to say 1st is far less sassy than it was in the beginning. The car feels like its in the zone now.

go hard or go home.

I <3 my FIT.

 

I’m very temped to use this type of brake in procedure once my Fit arrives and I have a few reasons why I might do this.

Back in 99 I purchased the first MR Civic Si sold in Madison,WI. It was the only Si they had for a long time and they let people test drive it all the time. When I finally walked into the dealer to test drive the car had about 600 miles. Do you think I was nice and easy on that car when I test drove it…….HELL NO!! I’m willing to be all the other people that test drove the car before me did the same thing I did. About a week later I purchased the car and drove it off the lot and said the hell with taking it easy, it has been driven hard up to this point so why stop. That engine was rock solid and did not burn or consume a drop of oil. The internals were in great condition when I pulled the head and oil pan a few years latter and that engine is rock solid to this day.

Then in 2004 my wife and I purchased a Mazda 6, 5 speed manual with the 3.0 V6. This time I did what the manual said, took it easy and followed the manual to the letter. I even was told that the oil had some type of additive for break in just like Honda is saying. Well the car runs strong but it does consume some oil in between changes. To this day I regret breaking it in the way I did.

One of the other reasons why I think the “run it hard out of the box” method works is because I have a background in machining and engineering. Having worked as a machinist I have a good understanding how modern marching process work and what can be achieved with modern tooling and state of the art machine tools. Understanding these processes and reading what is said in the link posted above makes allot of sense to me. Parts are made too much tighter tolerance these days. Much better surface finishes can be achieved with the type of tooling you will find in state of the art machine shops.

Understanding the quality that parts can be made to and the tolerances that can be held and the fact that it is much easy to repeat these high tolerances over millions of parts leads me believe the long break in process is old news and an old way of thinking. Back when machining capabilities were not very good and it was harder to have repeatability and consistence over millions of parts car manufactures would end up with a variety of different sized parts when build their engines. This is why I think the longer break in process was adopted.

Car makers have been telling people to do the long break for years that people are so set in there ways that if the manufactures turned around and started telling everyone this process is no longer necessary people are not going to believe them and just go on doing things the same old way. Think about it, if you dealer tells you that you have to go beat the hell out of your car for the first 20 miles most people are going to think the dealer is crazy. Your average person is not going to have the mechanical understanding on why running a car hard is better for it then if they just took it easy. People are going to be thinking along the lines “it’s a new car, I can’t just go beat the hell out of it, it just way to new and I need to be nice to my new car” that they just are not going do what the dealer is telling them.

I just think people realize how small of a “break in” window you actually have with today’s modern engines. You need the rings to seal and if you don’t soon you are not going to have those microscopic peaks and valleys to help seat the rings. What you will end up doing is smoothing them out over a long break in time and your rings will not wear into place like you want.

There are two things that I need to do a bit more research on before I make the choice to do the “run it hard” break in. I need to find more information if in fact the Fit does have fiber reinforced metal cylinder walls. I also need to find out if you can use synthetic oil with FRM cylinders. I know for a fact that the Preludes that had FRM did not like synthetic oil at all and if you did use it you could end up in a world of hurt. This happened to a friend of mine when he switched to synthetic oil on his Prelude. I was not long after he made the switch when his car started consuming oil like MAD!

 

HELLO ALL-
Just a note for everyone worring about BREAK IN PERIOD.I just slapped on my CAI and my axle back on my 3 day old 07' Fit with 30 miles on it and raced people all over . Redlined and poped vtec a few times ....engine runs like a dream! Put 300 miles on it that same day. I guess what I am saying is your car is better equipt to handle what you throw at it! Plus that's what warrenties are for. IMO.

07BlazeOMetallicgd3sport
Aspec CAI
Megan Dual Tip Axle Back

 

i got my car off the truck when it came in that saturday morning. It was so hard to resist redlining the car, the first day i got it and we ended up going to the mall. i slowly crept up to 80-85mph on the car and it having the stupid paddle shifters, i kept on accidentally redlining the engine since wasn't used to something so stupid. The thing is a gimmick, but i guess it basically reinforced "the driving it hard method".

 

+1. used the same method on my other car. took the factory fill synthetic out, replaced with conventional 10w30, drove very hard for about 900 miles, then replaced with factory recommended Mobile1 "synthetic" (which actually isn't synthetic, btw). did a dyno pull at 2000 miles, car actually produced +7hp above its equally broken-in, factory stock peers.

will do the same with the fit and post dyno results when able.

 

My thoughts exactly. I used this method on my new Fit. Ran her hard from the get....I now have close to 4 grand without any pinging or engine noise plus it runs like dream.


GD3blaze07'