Quote:
Originally Posted by MikosV6
If you break it in easy, such as keeping the rpm's always low, sustained highway cruising at low rpms and generally babying it when driving, the rings will never fully seat like they should. This will cause the engine to have less effective compression. Then, you will tend to burn more oil over time because you didn't develop the proper cross-hatching and piston ring to cylinder bore seal that you could have with a proper break in procedure.
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Ummm . . . crosshatching is not produced by running the engine or driving the car. If it's not there before you install the pistons in their bores it ain't gonna happen. Let's not try to confuse or mislead people who haven't ever had an engine completely apart.
There is a whole spectrum of break-in intensity (for lack of a better term) than the inadequate treatment that you're calling "easy" (which it isn't, not really) and overdoing it (as you seem to be suggesting is "best"). As Chris said earlier, what's really best lies somewhere in between.
On a new car, things like bearings and gears also need to have their microscopic-level wearing-in completed. And "breaking in" all of these components generates heat. Think local hot spots here if your break-in regimen isn't allowing sufficient cooling. For new axle gears after the first easy 40 - 50 mile break-in drive, you won't jump out of the driver's seat and hold your bare hand on the diff cover for as long as it took you to read this, guaranteed. Think about that for a moment . . .
Norm