It says in the Mini Cooper S manual that the engine should be broken in for 1400 miles. It says to keep revs below 4500rpms i believe. what will happen if one does not do this? I am expecting my cooper s by the end of august.

 

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The owner's manual actually says 1200 miles. It's gonna hurt trying to follow the guidelines for that long.....

 

Hi... just wanted to add my two cents...
I've had several mechanics tell me otherwise.....
It's my understanding that the break in time is given to let rings, lifters, and valves time to seat properly. I've also been told (and have noted) that an engine is not fully broken in until around 15K. At this point your engine will be about as good as it gets. Thus... if you drive it from the end of "break in" to 15K the way you want to ( )..... everything will seat well for your driving style.
My current car (99 Prelude) felt good at 5k but by 15K it was great! Now at 80K it's still fun but not like it was at 15K.
Just my .02
Happy Motoring.
SW

 

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Ok, this has long been a topic of conversation among a lot of tech-heads. My friend who's a mechanic claims that if you push an engine hard when it's new, >>I guess this could make sense, but I'm not so sure. He claims that if you baby the engine when it's new, then drive it hard later on, it can actually be worse on the engine because it's not used to being driven like that. Who knows?

So I guess if you plan on driving your MINI like the Fall Guy, maybe driving it hard in the beginning is the way to go. I'd play it safe and go by the manual though. 1400 miles sound a little extreme. Average break-in is usually around 500 miles isn't it?
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A Fall Guy reference! I love it!

 

I saw another post that said even though the "official" MINI break-in period is 1200 miles, 1250 is the real magic number for when the MINI computer considers break-in complete.

I was told at that point it recalculates for fuel-efficiency, resets air/fuel ratio, idle RPMs, 0-60 time/acceleration improves as various post-break-in programming goes into effect.

I just hit 1252 this morning, and have been waiting to install a set of Magnecor ignition wires I bought a month ago. I'm going to wait a few more days to see if there is any noticeable post-1250 improvement...
:smile:

 

Ok, I am going to trow this out there but a lot of people may balk because this isn't widely known. I own a vintage airplane and the two FAA certified mechanics told me the proper way to break-in an engine. One of these guys used to race MINIs and they are both into engines.

What you are trying to do is seat the rings to the pistons and cylinders to get a good seal. In the old days when the manufacturing processes were far less superior and the fit wasn't that good from the factory you wanted to get the rings to conform to the shape of the pistons and cylinders which in those days were not always perfectly round. This would assure good compression and less oil consumption over the life of those rings and pistons. Now here is the part that surprised me. It is really the oil that needs to be broken in. New oil doesn't really have the properties needed to seat the rings on a new engine. They explained in more techincal terms but they lost me at some point. Mechanics who really want to break-in an engine for long life and good performance put DIRTY oil in the engine and then run the **** out of it for a couple hundred miles. NO BABYING. This is what is done to my plane's new engine, dirty oil and run hard for several hours before put on the plane. Dirty oil has the proper viscosity and elements.

Sounds odd but 30-40 years ago new cars used to get the oil changed 500 miles after it was new and then regular oil changes after that. The MINI goes 8000 miles before the first change. Today with the new synthetic oils and more precise engine manufacturing there isn't really any need to break-in the engine. It is the oil you are really trying to get dirty and the new oils take longer since they last longer. You won't damage the engine one bit by having fun with it before 1200 miles. Todays engines are so precise that any trouble that might show up from running it hard when new will be way down the line when none of us still own the things. I literally trust my life to these guys so I tend to believe what they say. Drive your MINI as you like and have fun with it, don't be too hard but don't baby it, run the gamut and after 1200 when the oil is broken in have a ball. Anyone want more information I would be happy to get for them.

p.s Do not put dirty oil in your MINI, it has to be specific to your engine. Just drive it.

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Damon

BRG Cooper

 

Break in period huh? They still do that? When I bought my truck in 87 they told me that there is no break in period with Japenese cars. My brother has always driven his BMW from day 1 the way he drives all other cars. Hard and fast! I figured since BMW designed the car and engine (yes I know Chrysler was involved, not happy about that) this car should be able to handle DRIVING. So I have not driven the car as if it is a delicate item. It is a mean machine that wants to be driven! After 7100 miles it is doing great! Before the end of the month I will have added another 1k when I've driven it to Southern Ca.

 

When I bought my 2000 Jetta VR6, I was told that there was no break-in period. Just drive it like you want to and change the oil every 5,000 miles. At the same time, my sister bought a 2000 BMW Z3 and was told that the car had a 1200 mile break-in period. For a non-mechanic like me it is easy to get confused as to what to do since you hear so many different things.

 

I am now at 1327 miles, and I HAVE noticed that performance has improved gradually over the past 75 miles (I can only assume that what I heard about the post-break-in computer re-adjust is true).
I haven't put on the Magnecor wires yet that I mentioned in a previous post.. My original plan was to wait until I passed 1250 miles, and then put them on once the computer "re-adjusted" the engine settings...
So now I am glad I waited, on the off-chance that installing the magnecor wires during the break-in might reduce the positive impact of the post-break-in computer re-adjust.
At this point, I have decided to wait until next week to put them on, after I take my MINI into the dealer to get the (recall) shift cable linkage fixed.

 

Personally, I can have all the mechanics tell me what they think, but I am still going to go with the assumption that the MINI people know whats best for the car.

 

I love how there's all sorts of anecdotal evidence from mechanics being taken as fact as far as how you should treat your new engine.

However, I'm going to take a wild guess and suggest that maybe the engineers who designed the damn thing know best how to break it in. I would also suggest that unless the people who are telling you different are MINI engineers, they're not qualified to adjust the break-in schedule.

An initial run-in is done at the factory, to take care of the initial break-in requirements. This gets the engine to a workable state.

Once you get the engine, you should comply with the 1200 mile break-in period specified in the manual. This gives the other working parts time to break in with the engine. This 1200-mile period I think is not so much for the engine as it is for everything else that's new and needs some breaking in, such as the transmission and other mechanical items. The engine will also break in in this period but everything else needs a low-stress time to wear in.

The engine is not magically broken in at exactly 1200 miles. From 1200 miles on you can go above 4500 rpm and drive the way you want. The engine will continue its break-in process, maybe even up until 10,000 miles or more. From 1200-10,000 miles or so is when you want to drive it like you want to drive it. This will perfect ring sealing characteristics at the rpms you tend to drive the engine at.

You're not going to miss out on this window by driving gently for 1200 miles, you're just going to ensure that everything works well together later on when you can really nail it :smile:

Once you get past that 1200 miles you can and should drive it hard. This will keep carbon buildup to a minimum and will promote ring sealing at higher rpms, so you don't burn oil when you rev it up.

Even if you disagree with everything I've said, at least be sure to evaluate the sources of your information. Maybe there are particular nuances of the MINI that various mechanics don't know about. Maybe not. But if it comes down to who to trust as far as break-in info, I'm definitely going to trust the MINI engineers. They designed it and they tested it, and they know what it needs to lead a good service life.

 

 

I think of the break in period of an engine like a warm up before I work out at the gym. If you get right into your routine at the gym without a warm up, you're going to feel the pain sooner and after. You're going to tire sooner as well. The warm up prepares you for what's coming up. Just like the break in period.

I wouldn't say that you should follow the breakin period limits to the tee, but be somewhat reasonable. Just trickling over the reccomended rpm's or speed wouldn't hurt, if it's not done too often within that time frame. I've broken in a few vehicles of mine thus far, and have followed the procedure somewhat close. I escaped it a few times outside of the lines, though. I think it needs it.

It's like disconnecting the negative battery terminal when installing a mod to the engine. Once you hook it all back up, you usually want to drive it hard so it adjusts to your driving and knows what to expect.

So I say follow it for the most part, but go out of the lines every now and then by a bit just to let it know what you're expecting from her in the long run.

I've also been in loaner cars from dealerships and rental companies. They don't abide by the break in period, neither do the customers using the vehicle. And I say that just about every car that I've driven in that situation has been rough. Most of them had less than 2000km's on it, and it would sputter, jerk, loss of acceleration, etc. They need time to adjust, IMO. You can't thrash on them and expect everything to be ok afterwards.

It would be nice if they were broken in already from the factory. Manufacturers should hire seniors to drive the cars around a circuit for the first 1000km's or so. They usually stick to the speed limits. But then again, there's some pretty scarey seniors driving around out there.

Just my thoughts. Cheers,

 

I heard (from a guy with a Shelby Series 1)that he broke in the car by running it through the gears. He would cruise at 30mph and 1st, then run it to about 120 and 5th, then back again. He did that driving it home from the dealer (about 500 miles). Not that I'm suggesting that, but I would probably run it through all the RPMs and just drive it like I would normally.