Breaking-in New engine

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fazzy
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by fazzy »

Adam_013 wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 8:33 pm I always go by the oil is cheaper than metal.

IMO 20k intervals is far too long for me.

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And that is the whole point to this.
Manufacturers will promote long life and fewer oil changes, telling their customers that it saves on maintenance costs. They will tell you about phenomenal new technologies in the oil industry... End of the day it's all marketing bull s**t.
What they don't tell you is that for the manufacturer it is better for you to make fewer oil changes than in the past, because the potential repairs are far more worth to them, then just charging you for labour on a oil change.They just want your car to go trouble-free for the duration of the guarantee period. After that, you are on your own and you pay for repairs. Manufacturers will be more than happy to issue you with an invoice thereafter :)
Oil technology has changes, albeit not too radically... however physics have not changed at all. When you run metal against metal, there will be metal filings as a result.
There may be more, there may be less... but they will be there :)
If there weren't any, we would never have engine failures :) And I don't care what oil you use.
One of the main functions of motor oil is to reduce friction and wear on moving parts - reduce it. Not eliminate it.
That means that the metal filings stay in a closed loop until you change the oil and the oil filter. Someone might argue, that that's why you have an oil filter!! Yes, indeed... but the filings have to get there first and believe me... some parts of your car are more forgiving then others. Your turbocharger is one of those parts which is not that forgiving :)
End of the day, you pay your money, so you decide. I change my oil every 12-15 thousand kilometres. Bearing in mind the cost of an oil change, I say that my car also deserves a bottle of good whisky once in a while just like I do.
And that is all we can go by. None of us have tested the properties of oil after 10,15,20 or 30 thousand km's. And that means, that anything we say is based either on logic and our common knowledge or... marketing. I prefer to trust the first.
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by RUM4MO »

Fazzy, I hope that your posting has damped down the interest in this maybe "hot" topic.

Next topics for discussion might be "which engine oil is best" or "which fuel brand is best" - you tend to get quite a few pages of postings from them as well - maybe not, let sleeping dogs lie.
Dark_cze
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by Dark_cze »

Fazzy exactly also after those 30k km there are particles in oil from igniting fuel. Whitch are working like abrasive and slowly killing bearings, piston rings etc :-) LL oils are thin as hell 0w20 is like water and it hardly make any oil layer on parts. In the end it all depend on user of the car. If he want to keep it for 10 years or for 4 years.

VW want crazy money for their (castrol) oil so Iam doing changes myself first was at 4,5k km next at 15k and then at 30k in VW. Also I don't trust VW that much since they didn't changed oil in my father golf at all. So right after their change I will do my own change again. :D After my extended warranty I will stop using LL (vw508 00) I will go for thicker. In service manual are few other vw norms that my gti can use. (Sorry for wrong language at printscreen)
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monkeyhanger
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by monkeyhanger »

fazzy wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:15 am
Manufacturers will promote long life and fewer oil changes, telling their customers that it saves on maintenance costs. They will tell you about phenomenal new technologies in the oil industry... End of the day it's all marketing bull s**t.
What they don't tell you is that for the manufacturer it is better for you to make fewer oil changes than in the past, because the potential repairs are far more worth to them, then just charging you for labour on a oil change.They just want your car to go trouble-free for the duration of the guarantee period. After that, you are on your own and you pay for repairs. Manufacturers will be more than happy to issue you with an invoice thereafter :)
Oil technology has changes, albeit not too radically... however physics have not changed at all. When you run metal against metal, there will be metal filings as a result.
There may be more, there may be less... but they will be there :)
If there weren't any, we would never have engine failures :) And I don't care what oil you use.
One of the main functions of motor oil is to reduce friction and wear on moving parts - reduce it. Not eliminate it.
That means that the metal filings stay in a closed loop until you change the oil and the oil filter. Someone might argue, that that's why you have an oil filter!! Yes, indeed... but the filings have to get there first and believe me... some parts of your car are more forgiving then others. Your turbocharger is one of those parts which is not that forgiving :)
End of the day, you pay your money, so you decide. I change my oil every 12-15 thousand kilometres. Bearing in mind the cost of an oil change, I say that my car also deserves a bottle of good whisky once in a while just like I do.
And that is all we can go by. None of us have tested the properties of oil after 10,15,20 or 30 thousand km's. And that means, that anything we say is based either on logic and our common knowledge or... marketing. I prefer to trust the first.
Do you honestly think VW want your car to fall to bits at 4 years old? They have a reputation to uphold, and if everyone was facing a hefty bill at 4 years old, they would never buy another VW. VW aren't the most reliable within warranty these days, but usually something major is going to go within warranty (part manufacturing defect, not apparent at the point of assembly) rather than at year 4. Citing reliability at 6+ years is a bit of a crapshoot because if it's had 2 or 3 owners, you don't know whether regular maintenance has been performed.

Long life services are fine when used as intended - if you are doing a lot of miles in a short space of time. The vast majority of engine wear occurs at cold start-up, when no oil is flowing and it is bare metal on bare metal, and thereafter, to a lesser extent as the car is warming up and the oil is more viscous, so the oil does not flow optimally.

If you are doing a 10 mile journey, and your car takes 5 miles/8 minutes to fully warm up, you've got 5 miles with very little engine wear. Take someone else (driver B) then doing 25 miles each way, they're going to have the same wear for the first 5 miles, then negligible wear for their next 20. Driver B's engine is going to suffer only 40% wear average per mile that you are. Less wear = less metal for the filter to capture and retain. Long life oil changes are perfectly acceptable IF you are doing high mileages, that oil will be stable for 2 years use if it is fully synthetic.

Oil tech has improved, fully synthetic oils now have more even viscosity across the operational temperature range, right from start-up to warm engine, making them easier to pump, even from cold - Dark-cze has commented on how thin 0W20 fully synthetic is, it is that way by design to pump well from cold - just because it is thing from cold does not mean it will be a poorly performing lubricant, and it won't get significantly thinner with an oil temp of 90C, nor will it degrade within its intended service life - all this helps reduce initial wear vs mineral oils.

Filings/particulates get generated with wear and have to reach the filter first to not continue to cause damage as you have said, but whether you are on long life servicing or not, this is the case for both scenarios, unless you would be generating that many particulates in long life servicing that you would overwhelm the filter and those particles would remain in the oil (which isn't going to happen). The oil filters are effective at doing their job and capturing the debris to prevent further circulation.

In his final year of Uni in mechanical engineering, my nephew did a study on automotive engine wear. He asked his local Ford dealership to retain oil filters from services and determined the amount of engine wear by materials captured by the filter, referenced by the number of miles that the car had done between services, for 1, 2 and 3 year old cars.

Engineering tolerances are that small now that on like-for like mileage samples, the year 1 service (with all that running in and first year's wear) only had 20% more metal particulate matter than for years 2 and 3. The high mileage samples (15-25k miles pa and 26k miles +) had far less metal particulates than the lower mileage samples.

Even on the low mileage samples, worst case for metal particulates worn and lost to the oil filter in first year servicing was 230mg (about 3 cubic millimetres).

If you are doing less than 12k miles pa, I would go for annual oil changes, and still use fully synthetic oil. If you are doing more than 15k miles pa, I would definitely be ok with long life servicing - as they'll be suffering far less wear (and causing less particulate generation) per mile.
Last edited by monkeyhanger on Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
stevereeves
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by stevereeves »

Personally I'm a huge fan of regular oil changes and no, I don't sell oil. It was once explained to me that engine oil is one of the most important and probably biggest 'components' of an engine as it comes into contact with pretty much every moving part. The functions of oil, as already explained are to lubricate, clean and help cool an engine and while modern oil certainly does perform much better than in days past, in time it still breaks down and becomes less efficient. Particularly when operated in regular short-journey scenarios. This exchange of opinons could go on and on, but I know several enthusiastic car and bike owners who not only change their oil & filter every 6 months / 6,000 miles latest but also rinse out the old filter with WD-40, refit it & re-fill with a cheapish brand of oil, drive carefully for 5-10 miles, then drain and refill with new, branded quality oil + new filter. That way the engine is also cleaned out better than it would otherwise but just draining the oil. I'm very much a 'peace of mind' person and if I owned my car, it's on 4 yrs PCP, this is what I'd likely do but as with anything in life it's whatever folk decide works for them....
Dark_cze
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by Dark_cze »

So last advice from me is: do what ever you want and what suits you :-D as electromechanic (not for cars) I will go the way I think and feel is right. If anyone want to go with VW BS* Iam fine with it as long as it is not mine car :-D
Leif
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by Leif »

Monkey hanger has given an excellent answer, however it’s worth noting that the study he references examined oil, and not the piston heads and other components. It is conceivable that fine particulates do build up and cause wear on long servicing intervals. In other words, it said nothing about the actual wear on the engine. Whatever the truth, if you do long journeys and keep the car from new for 3 years, or maybe even 4 or 5, go long servicing intervals. If you do lots of short journeys, then don’t. If you keep the car ten years, well I see no proof that long servicing intervals do not cause more wear. The best option is perhaps to do long servicing intervals but change the oil yourself at 10,000 miles for peace of mind.
silverhairs
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by silverhairs »

Not sure if it's been brought up before?
"Breaking-in new engine" You run-in new engines, you "break-in horses" I realise they used to be called "horseless carriages", but that was many moons ago.
Andy Beats
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by Andy Beats »

Leif wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:49 pm well I see no proof that long servicing intervals do not cause more wear.
You can't disprove a negative.
It's like saying "I see no proof there isn't a god" or "I see no proof there are no unicorns"
I'm sure there have been studies done on the effects of long service intervals, undoubtedly by the car manufacturers and oil companies.
Whether you can find proof of these studies, don't know.
What is a 'piston head' by the way?
Pistons have crowns and skirts, I've never heard the term 'piston head' before, and I've rebuilt many a two and four-stroke engine.
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by RUM4MO »

I'd think that the term "engine breaking in" comes from the land of blazing saddles, otherwise known as the land of the free and probably the only country to set up and send out "friendship forces" to get the world to love them. (yes I've got relatives out there, not Trumpites though, definitely not).
fazzy
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by fazzy »

monkeyhanger wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 3:13 pm
In his final year of Uni in mechanical engineering, my nephew did a study on automotive engine wear. He asked his local Ford dealership to retain oil filters from services and determined the amount of engine wear by materials captured by the filter, referenced by the number of miles that the car had done between services, for 1, 2 and 3 year old cars.
Generally, I think that commenting your post will be a waste of time, but since you mentioned a study on automotive engine wear, please publish it for everyone to see in detail.
Thanks.
EmiLiuZ
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by EmiLiuZ »

I've leased my GTI for two years and I roughly do 10-30 kms a day.
I'll just enjoy my car and don't think too much about breaking in.
I've heard rumours that most VWs has a magical switch at 700 miles / 1000 kms that should give you some extra power though, Is that true?
Andy Beats
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Re: Breaking-in New engine

Post by Andy Beats »

EmiLiuZ wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:44 am I've leased my GTI for two years and I roughly do 10-30 kms a day.
I'll just enjoy my car and don't think too much about breaking in.
I've heard rumours that most VWs has a magical switch at 700 miles / 1000 kms that should give you some extra power though, Is that true?
I don't know if it's true, but certainly theoretically possible for VW to set the engine to give more power once a certain mileage is reached.
I've had long-held suspicions car manufacturers deliberately make their cars feel 'bad' as service time approaches, then they switch the ECU back to normal at the service.
Hey presto, the car feels all nice and lively again and you feel like your £200 has been well spent. :)
Maybe conspiracy theory stuff, but there you go.
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