I've always been a believer in carefully breaking in the engine in new cars. Particularly performance cars. I know from all the posts about the recommended break-in period for Mini's that everybody's saying 1200 miles under 4500rpm, varying the rpm's frequently. This is fairly consistent with what I've followed in the past. I think there's some solid reasoning behind this concept. It occured to me last Saturday while I was test driving an MCS prior to ordering my CR/W JCW MCS, that the dealer demos certainly don't get the correct break-in. Since this was the first time I had driven a Mini, I wanted to get a good idea of what it had, so I was flogging it pretty good. My MA, who was along for the ride, encouraged me to wind it out, and this car only had a few miles on it. Has anybody here bought a demo, and if so, have you had any engine problems down the road? Can I be sure that the dealer won't use my car for a demo drive or two before I pick it up?

 

Unless you're planning to keep the car for well over 100k miles, you
really don't need to worry too much about the motor having problems
from improper break-in, imho.

I'd be more worried about people jamming on the brakes, jamming the
shifter, dealer not following proper tire pressures, low coolant levels,
and cosmetic flaws (bird droppings,etc).

 

I'd be more worried about clutch problems in a manual dealer demo car than the break-in.

Spoke to my dealer a few weeks ago, they had 1 demo car barely last a 30 minute test drive, the clutch was so trashed they had a hard time getting it from in front of the showroom over to the service bay. They don't think the potential customer took their foot off the clutch for more than 30 seconds on the whole drive...

 

I think with modern day materials and automated manufacturing processes, the traditional breakin procedure is less important than it used to be. Plus, there is some evidence that aggressively using the engine from Day 1 is actually better for it and leads to better performance (eg, better compression).

fwiw, high end sports cars get dyno- and road-tested with numerous bouts to redline before being released from the factory.

 

There are several scenarios for dealer demos. In the best case it is a MINI that is charged out to one of the MINI sales persons or manager and is driven daily and broken in correctly. While it is at the dealership during the day it is used for demo drives. Another case is where the MINI is used as a loaner for the dealership as well as a demo for sales. The miles add up and soon you are out of the breakin period. Any unsold MINI can be demo driven once it is prepped and cleaned and you don't know how it has been treated but if there are less than 10 miles on the odometer it is probably OK.

If you order a new MINI you can ask that it be never driven as a demo car without your permission. You can tell from the mileage if that is true.

So for a demo car you can never really be sure how it was driven especially if it has more than 1200 miles on it. If you ride the clutch it will wear it out quite a bit faster.

 

It sounds like there is a faction of Mini drivers that believe no break-in period is necessary. They think you should drive it the same from day one. Is the 1200 mile break-in an actual Mini recommendation or just advice from owners?

 

It's done with MINIs as well. I was at the factory two weeks ago and they made a point of telling us this...

 

When I test drove the MINI that I now own,it had not been out on a test drive,fresh off the boat/truck,It had 15 km on it,less than 10 miles,I bought it after I put 50 miles on it.Was mine the next day:smile: