Break in, Oil and New Honda Civic Si ADVICE PLEASE
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I have a 2006 Civic Si also.
Keep the factory fill for at least 5,000 miles. The owners manual recommends oil changes at 15% OLM; I got rid of the factory fill at 20%, and I was at 5,400 miles.
And don't even consider that Mototune Hard Break-In bull****. Those kind of people constantly build and rebuild their engines, so long term wear is not a concern for them; they only focus on power-inducing break-in procedures. Honda knows their products best...
...but I have a qualm with the Oil Life Meter. I use Mobil 1, but I refuse to go over 5,000 miles. Honda prides themselves on "low cost of ownership", so the OLM is very liberal on oil life.
Keep the factory fill for at least 5,000 miles. The owners manual recommends oil changes at 15% OLM; I got rid of the factory fill at 20%, and I was at 5,400 miles.
And don't even consider that Mototune Hard Break-In bull****. Those kind of people constantly build and rebuild their engines, so long term wear is not a concern for them; they only focus on power-inducing break-in procedures. Honda knows their products best...
...but I have a qualm with the Oil Life Meter. I use Mobil 1, but I refuse to go over 5,000 miles. Honda prides themselves on "low cost of ownership", so the OLM is very liberal on oil life.
Honda does use molybdenum during the engine assembly process which then mixes with the oil . It says so in the August 2006 issue on Acura service news. first page, right column.
Acura service news August 2006
Acura service news August 2006
Have you done a UOA on this Si?
I see you have gotten lots of advice on this question that always brings out all the old wives tales in the book. First I really like your choice in cars. While I would still suggest it is an economy car, it is likely to be one of the great ones. I considered it for a while in the Spring, but even then you had to wait for the O7's like you did. Went for a Mazda3 instead and love it. It would be nice to have that extra 38 HP and 6 speed you have though.
My theory on break in is fairly simple.
Drive it with respect and limit revs for the first 5,000 miles or so to keep stresses down. Wiped bearings and other contact surfaces almost never heal themselves.
Drain and replace your oil anytime you feel like it. It makes no difference with quality engines like the Honda. It is easy to imagine those steel filings and other nasty materials circulating around your engine wrecking havoc, this is more imagination than fact. Remember you have an oil filter. On the other hand there is nothing magic about the factory fill. So if it makes you feel good, then change it when it feels good. Otherwize change it when your manual says so. I changed at 3,000 km and it felt good, despite the fact the M3 2.3 is a pain to change oil.
Don't worry about driving at different speeds and rpm's. No harm can be done by driving a constant speed. To break the whole car in of course you have to remember it has 6 gears and time needs to be spent in each before it is really broke in.
It does not matter a bit whether you use synthetic oil or conventional during the break-in. That is another decision unrelated to breaking in the vehicle.
Enjoy your car.
Note that they are not saying the moly does any good during the break-in, just that it is a left over assembly product that accounts for the early dark color. The stated need to keep the factory fill oil in, strikes me as just another restatement of the break-in oil old wives tale.quote:
Originally posted by sxg6:
Well that puts one topic to rest for me. The question of whether honda puts in a special high moly oil, or if the high moly content is just from the oil mixing with the assembly lube.
What that Service Newsletter also states is:
"What’s really important to remember here is this: Don’t change the factory-fill engine oil because it looks dark; just make sure it’s at the right fluid level. To ensure proper engine break-in, the factory-fill engine oil needs to remain in the engine until the first scheduled maintenance interval."
With the lawyers and accountants heavily guiding the show at so many companies these days, this makes more sense than a lot of other explainations I have heard in the past.
No, you don't have to go to 110 to get it to high revs but there are so many idiots that would do it because they just don't know another way, that it is clear to see why the lawyeres would step up to the plate on this one.
Another thing that MAY be true is that with all the testing that the engineers have done, they found that if a car is broken in "in a way that keeps the law boys happy", it will last past the warranty period and maybe even past the period that most people, on average, keep a car but not as long as some of us do that drive high mileage vehicles in the range of 200K plus.
The above is from an engineer who designs engines. My Toyota consumed oil from day one and ran like new with 180k miles on it. I've read theories that some oil consumption is actually beneficial for an engine. I don't think you can go wrong either way. Now when I had my Dodge Ram with the Hemi, the manual actually did state to WOT frequently after 300 miles. So in reality, I don't think it matters either way and I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the engine. Most Honda IVTEC's burn a bit of oil. It's the design of the engine, or so it seems.
I've always used the 'full throttle acceleration from 2500 rpm to 5000 rpm load / full engine braking ' method to break-in the motors.
The engine has to be fully warmed up before this is performed. This also gives time to be sure that the engine feels right.
I do the full load / full engine braking 10 times...the feel of this method is that the engine is being given a workout, but not like the engine is being abused.
Other than that I follow the typical manufacturer's limited revs, varying rpm 'take it easy' break-in.
If it is a rebuilt engine I change the oil at 100 miles, 500 miles, and 1500 miles.
If it is a new car, I change at 3000 miles.
Once the engine starts to get close to 300 miles I drive a bit harder, and by 1000 miles I start full throttle to redline at least once per day through the gears which is how I will drive the engine for the rest of its life.
Whether the engine is new, rebuilt, or a in a used car it helps to test if for a while and make sure it is ready for full throttle driving.
In the past, I picked up new cars in Denmark and driven them conservatively for a few hundred miles to the German border and then ran them full throttle all the way to Switzerland. These engines were alway good running engines.
Of course the Autobahn is too crowded and has too many speed limits to do this nowadays. Now driving the Autobahn allows full throttle bursts until the traffic requires braking and reduced speed.
Last week I could drive my rental car no faster that 210 km/hr on the sections of the Autobahn south of Frankfurt.
That car had 24,000 km on it, and the engine ran a lot better after it had a little workout.
In the old days I used the best higher viscosity oil and changed frequently to protect the engine...now I use the best synthetic and change every 7000 miles.
I'd say with a new car good break-in procedures includes:
-pay attention to the owner's manual break in procedures [ there is nothing wrong with their approach, and you do have a warranty after all ],
-drive with light throttle until the engine is warmed up fully,
-add in full load and engine braking cycles,
-after 1000 miles, at least once per day drive a warm engine with full or near full throttle, rev up to near redline, and use full engine braking so that the engine gets to rev up and down freely,
- change the oil between 3000 miles and the mileage listed in the owner's manual. [ some car makers state that it is important to not change the oil until the listed point ]
The engine has to be fully warmed up before this is performed. This also gives time to be sure that the engine feels right.
I do the full load / full engine braking 10 times...the feel of this method is that the engine is being given a workout, but not like the engine is being abused.
Other than that I follow the typical manufacturer's limited revs, varying rpm 'take it easy' break-in.
If it is a rebuilt engine I change the oil at 100 miles, 500 miles, and 1500 miles.
If it is a new car, I change at 3000 miles.
Once the engine starts to get close to 300 miles I drive a bit harder, and by 1000 miles I start full throttle to redline at least once per day through the gears which is how I will drive the engine for the rest of its life.
Whether the engine is new, rebuilt, or a in a used car it helps to test if for a while and make sure it is ready for full throttle driving.
In the past, I picked up new cars in Denmark and driven them conservatively for a few hundred miles to the German border and then ran them full throttle all the way to Switzerland. These engines were alway good running engines.
Of course the Autobahn is too crowded and has too many speed limits to do this nowadays. Now driving the Autobahn allows full throttle bursts until the traffic requires braking and reduced speed.
Last week I could drive my rental car no faster that 210 km/hr on the sections of the Autobahn south of Frankfurt.
That car had 24,000 km on it, and the engine ran a lot better after it had a little workout.
In the old days I used the best higher viscosity oil and changed frequently to protect the engine...now I use the best synthetic and change every 7000 miles.
I'd say with a new car good break-in procedures includes:
-pay attention to the owner's manual break in procedures [ there is nothing wrong with their approach, and you do have a warranty after all ],
-drive with light throttle until the engine is warmed up fully,
-add in full load and engine braking cycles,
-after 1000 miles, at least once per day drive a warm engine with full or near full throttle, rev up to near redline, and use full engine braking so that the engine gets to rev up and down freely,
- change the oil between 3000 miles and the mileage listed in the owner's manual. [ some car makers state that it is important to not change the oil until the listed point ]
What if the factory fill thing is really about making sure some idiot doesn't screw up the first 5-7500 with some totally wrong oil vis during breakin? Honda can then statistically minimize the number of warranty repairs it has to do because they know what the quality/grade of the oil during breakin is.
My UOA at 1800 miles noted the slightly higher levels of Moly. However, any good motor oil will be comparable, and that debate is endless here at BITOG. The Mobil 1 I use is as good or better, and I got all that silicon (some undoubtedly from sealants) and the higher levels of other wear metals out of there earlier.
To the above poster recommending full throttle breakins?? That's just abuse of the engine.
It may be abuse of the engine, but these abused engines always run well the entire life of the car. I own some cars that have 250K up to 500K miles and still run great and don't use oil.
To me that says just how good modern engines are, how good modern oil is, and that engines don't mind a little spirited driving.
I'm not saying that racing or sustained WOT is the secret to long engine life. I am saying that well maintained engines that are driven full throttle to redline occasionally every day run fine, based on my experience.
I'd also say that many engines that are babied may have more problems than engines that get the daily Italian Tune Up.
Regarding the Honda advice about oil changes, I still don't know what to do. I'm sure that the Honda advice will work, but I can't bring myself to run an engine that long on factory fill. I switch to synthetic at 3000 miles and the engines run just fine, our Honda VTEC included.
Of course, 3000 miles might be close to the 'severe' oil change interval.
Heh, did anyone look notice the bad photoshop job Honda did for the photo for "Engine oil after 5 minute test run"? I haven't color corrected my monitor in awhile, but it looks pretty green to me.
Maybe the VTEC motor magically turns ordinary oil into GC Green!!! (wait forget I said that, I don't want to find that someone drained my Odyssey in the middle of the night)
Why are we resurrecting another zombie thread from 2006??????
Cause it is fun.
Wrong answer.
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