The issue is to not abuse the engine, and also not to baby the engine. The break in procedure is to seat the piston rings to the cylinder walls. If done correctly, this can be mostly done in as few as 25 miles. The minute you pick up the car from the dealer, let it warm to full temperature. But as soon as three to five miles later, I suggest you accelerate hard (observing the 4500 rpm) limit, and then coasting down in gear as much as traffic allows. 4500 in 6th is probably faster than most of you will want to drive, but it won't hurt anything. Keep doing this.

You want to accelerate hard to increase combustion pressure to force the rings out to the cylinder walls hard to make them seat properly and quickly. This is not abusing your engine. You are doing it a favor. Keep doing this for 50 to 100 miles, then drive it at constantly varying speeds, up and down, and go and coast (in gear). Your gas mileage will be terrible during this phase. Change your oil and filter at 1000 miles. Do this yourself and catch the oil in a clean disposable turkey pan. Filter your oil back into its bottle through some paper towels. Examine the filter down in the pleats of the paper (on the outside). You will see grit, aluminum chips and copper turnings. When you see how filthy your oil comes out and see stuff you filtered out, you will be really happy you changed the oil. And maybe you also won't have BMW cool-aid stains on you lips in the future.

Happy motoring and enjoy your new MINIs.

YD

 

Did you do it yourself or was it done for you? I am thinking about having the dealer change my oil at 1500. I am afraid to have anyone non-dealer service the car.

 

I was curious as to who got enjoy the first 14 miles of our MINI. That's what our odometer read at delivery. Best not to think about it, perhaps.

 

Sorry to ask, but what does "three five three miles" mean?

 

After reading the above posts I understand what the Break In Period of the enginge should be, but I have what I think might be a unique situation. Our MINI will be our Daily Driver M-F approx. 35mi. round trip per day, a good deal of freeway driving. Average travel times vary from 30-45min. both AM & PM. I'm interested in opions on how this will affect the Break In Period of our not yet delivered MINI.
Thanks in advance for your insights.

 

If it's not a lot of stop and go, I'd say fine. If it is, plan a DE for each weekend.

 

FWIW, I have 2 BMWs motorcycles an R1150 GS and a K12RS and I would run it hard through the gears with lots of engine breaking (roll off the throtle). I did vary engine speeds and avoided highway driving for the 1st 600miles. The bike uses less than 200ccs oil over 6K. Aircooled BMWs are notorius for burning oil until the break in peroid. BLUF, vary engine speeds, avoid prolonged hiway drives and use lots of engine breaking.

 

I did it myself.