What is a break in oil change and why is it done?
In: Engineering
With a new engine, there might be material from parts rubbing as they get seated and maybe some debris from manufacturing that will get into the oil. The debris can cause additional wear so you’d do a break-in oil change to get rid of it. Not sure how common that is these days though.
To put it simply, when you have a brand new car, you have a lot of pieces that are being driven around for the first time ever, spinning and moving and rubbing up against each other for the first time ever. This goes for like the first 500 to 1,000 miles driven on the car.
Then you should do a break in oil change, instead of waiting the typical 5,000 or 6,000 mile period.
Why? Because when you’re breaking in the engine, there’s a decent change all that new movement and friction is going to cause some metal flakes, chips, and shavings to break off into the oil as all these parts move around. And you don’t want those to sit in your oil forever because that can cause more rubbing and wear on the engine, so after 500 to 1,000 miles, you do an oil change to remove the risk of that.
Choices you make at the start of the life of an engine may or may not impact the useful life of the engine – would you be willing to spend $70 extra on a new car just for the added ‘assurance’ that you might get 50k or 100k miles extra out of it? To many people that seems like a no-brainer.
On the other side of this coin sits ample examples of cars that spent their first 3-5 years as rentals, barely getting sufficient maintenance of any kind and then still going for 15-20 years later.
The thing is, there is a lot of “institutional knowledge” and “heresay” about engines and oil. A lot of this is based off of much older cars with significantly worse oil quality (pre-synthetics) and manufacturing technology. Precision mass manufacturing and synthetic oils have largely made wear-related failures of engines disappear – as long as you keep with the manufacturer’s service intervals and use the recommended oil, you’re most likely to get a long useful life out of the engine without spending unnecessary money on maintenance.
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