Running in period

[Buggaluggs]

Hello guys, having spent over 20 years in the aftersales side of the motor trade I would say that there is no official running in period, as if there were we would be taking our cars into dealer for an oil change after 1000 miles and we would still be using running in type oils. Common sense applies, clearly no hard driving from cold, but that will never change (friction parts and all that) but a normal mix of driving otherwise is the key to best performance/ oil & fuel consumption.

[GTI-Newbie]

When running in a new car do I need to warm it up before I leave my driveway or should I just turn it on and drive away keeping to 3000 revs? I have been told to not go over 3000 revs only until the temp gauge is at 90?

Can anyone please advise?

[CraigW]

When running in a new car do I need to warm it up before I leave my driveway or should I just turn it on and drive away keeping to 3000 revs? I have been told to not go over 3000 revs only until the temp gauge is at 90?

Can anyone please advise?

No, there is no need to leave it running in the driveway. Yes, take it easy for the first few miles until it warms up but it literally only takes 5 mins to reach the optimum temperature

[Poached]

When running in a new car do I need to warm it up before I leave my driveway or should I just turn it on and drive away keeping to 3000 revs? I have been told to not go over 3000 revs only until the temp gauge is at 90?

Can anyone please advise?

No you do not need to sit on the driveway for 30 minutes waiting for the oil to reach running temps .

The coolant temp will reach it's 'set point' before the oil temps have risen and settled which you should also be able to view on the drivers display? It's typically 10-15 minutes of driving (Speed and Air temp dependent) before the oil has reached around 70-80 Celsius.

Same rules apply for a new or old car, start the car wait for a small period of time to allow the oil to circulate and drive away and avoid giving it the beans until the oil has reached typical operating temps.

[monkeyhanger]

When running in a new car do I need to warm it up before I leave my driveway or should I just turn it on and drive away keeping to 3000 revs? I have been told to not go over 3000 revs only until the temp gauge is at 90?

Can anyone please advise?

It’s not how many revs, but how you get there. Getting to 3000rpm by burying the throttle and then changing up is probably worse than getting to 3500rpm with ½ throttle. 2/3 rpm range with use of ½ throttle is probably a safeish place to be for the first few hundred miles, a bit less than ½ throttle on a cold engine perhaps, don’t lose sleep over the odd incursion beyond that.