I'm getting my clubman S this Saturday (Can't wait!!). I know we all want to race the Clubman out of dealer as soon as we get it... But what's a good way to break in the clubman? and for how many miles? 500, 1000?

Plz help~~

 

Mini's recommendation is:

1200 Miles

Do not exceed 90 MPH

Do not exceed 4000 RPM

 

Break-in is a myth! Drive and Enjoy your MINI!

 

If it's a myth, why did the MINI/BMW engineers state the break in requirements in the owner's manual?

 

I heard two different sides of the story. One is to to as the manual said. The other one is to drive like no tomorrow since the car nowadays is build better and better. The engine can take the beat and let you enjoy.

I love my clubman and want to take good care of it. That's why I'd like to hear all you break in your mini....

 

Shadyyu, I went by MINIs break-in period as stated in the manual. I'm wondering it is to acquaint you with the vehicle before you go off and play hard in it. I also wanted to follow the rules because I don't want MINI reading my Clubbie's little black box and saying they won't repair my vehicle because I didn't follow their guide.

If you want to find out more about your new vehicle, download the manual from the OL. I have it on my desktop for those who haven't signed up on the OL.

 

It may be a myth but it won't hurt the car to follow the break in recomended in the book but if you dont and go all out with 6 miles on the car you could very well hurt it in ways you would not know till miles latter. The miles will come fast anyway as you will find many many reasons to drive it.

 

Why take a chance, follow the manual. 1,200 miles will come at you quickly, what's the hurry?

 

When I purchased my Clubman I asked about the break-in period and everyone (salesman, manager, service manager, techs) told me that the motor was designed to run out of the box. Although I heard what they said, I didn't drive too hard but I knew that I could driver her.

 

So they could set you up for the 1 year unlimited miles first oil change.

 

There is another thread here somewhere, where it is recommended to drive it HARD, after the engine warms up, for the first 20-40 miles. This helps the rings and the seals become "forced" into a more solid final position, creating a better vaccum.

I'll see if I can find it.

 

HERE IT IS . . .

"I wrote "Break-In Secrets" after successfully applying this method
to approximately 300 new engines, all without any problems whatsoever.

Links to this article now appear on hundreds of motorsports discussion forums from all over the world. The reason is that over time, large numbers of people have done a direct comparison between my method and the owner's manual method, and the news of their success is spreading rapidly.

The results are always the same... a dramatic increase in power at all RPMs. In addition, many professional mechanics have disassembled engines that have used this method, to find that the condition of the engine is much better than when the owner's manual break-in method has been used.

The thing that makes this page so controversial is that there have been many other break-in articles
written in the past which will contradict what has been written here.

Several factors make the older information on break-in obsolete.

The biggest factor is that engine manufacturers now use a much finer honing pattern in the cylinders than they once did. This in turn changes the break-in requirements, because as you're about to learn, the window of opportunity for achieving an exceptional ring seal is much smaller with
newer engines than it was with the older "rough honed" engines.

In addition, there is a lot less heat build up in the cylinders from ring friction
due to the finer honing pattern used in modern engines.

The other factors that have changed are the vastly improved metal casting and machining
technologies which are now used. This means that the "wearing in" of the new parts
involves significantly less friction and actual wear than it did in the distant past.

With that in mind ...



Quote:
What's The Best Way To Break-In A New Engine ??
The Short Answer: Run it Hard !


Why ??
Nowadays, the piston ring seal is really what the break in process is all about. Contrary to popular belief, piston rings don't seal the combustion pressure by spring tension. Ring tension is necessary only to "scrape" the oil to prevent it from entering the combustion chamber.

If you think about it, the ring exerts maybe 5-10 lbs of spring tension against the cylinder wall ...
How can such a small amount of spring tension seal against thousands of
PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch) of combustion pressure ??
Of course it can't.

How Do Rings Seal Against Tremendous Combustion Pressure ??

From the actual gas pressure itself !! It passes over the top of the ring, and gets behind it to force it outward against the cylinder wall. The problem is that new rings are far from perfect and they must be worn in quite a bit in order to completely seal all the way around the bore. If the gas pressure is strong enough during the engine's first miles of operation (open that throttle !!!), then the entire ring will wear into
the cylinder surface, to seal the combustion pressure as well as possible.


The Problem With "Easy Break In" ...
The honed crosshatch pattern in the cylinder bore acts like a file to allow the rings to wear. The rings quickly wear down the "peaks" of this roughness, regardless of how hard the engine is run.

There's a very small window of opportunity to get the rings to seal really well ... the first 20 miles !!

If the rings aren't forced against the walls soon enough, they'll use up the roughness before they fully seat. Once that happens there is no solution but to re hone the cylinders, install new rings and start over again.

Fortunately, most new sportbike owners can't resist the urge to "open it up" once or twice,
which is why more engines don't have this problem !!

An additional factor that you may not have realized, is that the person at the dealership who set up your bike probably blasted your brand new bike pretty hard on the "test run". So, without realizing it, that adrenaline crazed set - up mechanic actually did you a huge favor !! "

 

I love the fact that everyone follows the break-in recommendations so religiously, basically treating the manual like the Bible, but then a few pages over when it says follow the oil change indicator in your car, whether that be 10,000 or 15,000 miles, those same people throw the Bible down and call it a liar. "No, I change my oil every 3,000. The manual is wrong!"

How do you reconcile that?

 

I greatly doubt that statement; about the only way to notice a huge increase in power like that would be if you drove the car when one cylinder had lost compression completely. And what's this drastic increase measurement compared to, an identical engine that was driven lightly? What's the baseline?

Then what happens when they let cars idle at the factory when they do the post-production tests? What about when the techs let the car sit and run while they are doing the PDI at the dealership before delivery? What happens when customers takes it for a test drive before you end up buying it? Are you hosed if the odometer has 22 miles on it?

Just a clarification, I'm not attacking n733lk, I'm just debating the claims from the story that was written, nothing personal

Because it's been beaten into everyone's head that 3,000 miles is the requirement. And it was probably correct back in the day when engines rarely made it to 100,000 miles without major work; when oil was just oil, and oil filters didn't trap a lot of debris, and air filters weren't much better. Today's engines have much closer tolerances, and they are (usually) machined to a higher standard. Even the cast iron engine blocks of today have a high nickel content, which makes them wear at a much slower rate. But the other area of focus is oil; synthetics are great. Synthetics are based on oil molecules that have been synthesized. All of the molecules are essentially the same size, where regular oil has varying sizes of molecules.

The synthesized molecules are more uniform, and can move about more freely. Do a test; take a cup or two of regular, non-synthetic 10w-30 oil, and put it in the freezer. Then, do the same thing with a cup or two of full synthetic 10w-30 oil, and leave them both in there overnight.

Take them out the next day, and just pour them out of their cups. The regular oil will move like mollases, and the synthetic will almost pour out like water. Synthetics extend engine life primarily because they can flow to all of an engines' components at startup, especially when it's cold. Most of the wear today's engines see is at startup.

Anyway, my rant is over . People just change the oil every 3k miles because they heard it religiously growing up, and it was a good idea to do that at the time, given the circumstances. But a alot of today's engines can go to 5k or more with full synthetic oil. Changing the oil at 3k miles won't hurt anything, except your wallet.

There's an old adage among mechanics: If you don't change the oil very often, you can damage the engine through excessive wear. After that, you can change the oil every 1,500 miles, it won't matter, the damage is done. Then again, this adage applied to older cars, as a way to get people to change their oil and filter every 3k

Shadyyu: I've babied my cars since I was 16, never had any problems. In turn, I have friends that beat the snot out of their cars. Sometimes their cars break, sometimes they don't. You aren't going to lose any power by waiting until 1,200 miles to have some fun. Going up to 4,000 RPM before then a couple of times probably won't hurt either.

The fact that the engine is using synthetic oil from the factory does support the case that it's going to have very little break-in time; read any manual for breaking in an engine, it will state pretty clearly not to use synthetics during break-in, because of the reduced friction they allow. It would also explain why alot of MINI owners don't see a rise in MPG after 2-3k miles like other cars do, because the engine isn't going to really "break-in" that much. The 1,200 miles of break-in may be for other things besides the engine; what about the turbo on S models, and the transmissions on all models? I'm just hypothesizing here.

 

spun my tires leaving the dealership frist day

 

No attack taken. Just sharing info I've found.
I pick up my Zuggy tomorrow morning! I guess I'll just see what kinda mood I'm in

 

Thanks the informantion from n337lk and msmith81.

This is why I want to hear how other people treat their babies during break in.

I think I will take it slow like the manual said for 1200mile. But I will not be afraid to be spirit sometime. Then again it's all about how much we like our clubby and how you want to drive it!

 

Taking it slow as per the manual really is not slow. you'll be quite pleased with how the car responds up to 4000 rpm in any gear. The 4000 rpm limit with the stick is more than enough engine speed to get you down the highway in 6th gear. As someone pointed out, the 1200 miles goes fast. I used the mototune method of break in on all my motorcycles and did to some extent with my clubman. All my bikes run/ran great and the Clubman seems just fine. I still watched the rpm's and did not beat on it during the breakin miles. Dan

 

+1

Normal speed even if above the speed limit by a significant amount (in the USA, Canada) will still have the engine running less than 4k. Normal Street driving will definitely be under the 90 mph recommendation, and if in the city or suburbs you will be shifting before the 4k. The only time i can see that someone would be hitting the 4k a lot is when they are on the track somewhere. Even when i took mine to the crag strip i barely got above 4k before needing to shift.

As for the miles do what i did Take a long weekend trip JUST to drive. I picked mine up on a Tuesday, drove to work 3 days and then went for a nice drive thru the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire for three day weekend. By the time i got home i had over 1400 miles on the car. Break In Done.