So went to the dealer today who strongly recommended to me to not change the oil this early.
I was at 930 miles (when I arrived).
Had my trusty Mobil 1 filter in my hand.
Its not that they outright refused but I did not press the issue either.
The oil does still look real good (and in the back of my head I am not all that enthusiastic about the dealers 0w-20 oil)
And now tonite at 960 miles (bascially a 1000) there is zero detectable loss of oil (I looked very carefully).
Which I think is great tells me the rings are fully seated and likely have been, for some time.
I cant wait to be full broken in at wring out this engine.
Most folks seem to agree the armada perforams even better than one would expect the engine to do from its on paper numbers.
Realistically I know 80-90 % of breakin probbaly happens somewhere between 100 and 200 miles.
But still I can hold off a bit longer until we are at 1200...
So... The dealer recommended you "not" to change your oil this early? I'm curious as to why they would say that?
Was it because they are concerned about the costs you would incur? Or.... were they saying they have a special break-in oil? Perhaps some other reason?
I remember back in the 80's, my uncle purchased a brand new Mercury Sable (3.8 V6). He changed the oil with about 1,000 miles on the odometer. He used Mobil 1
engine oil. (Because back then, it was the premier synthetic.) Well... all was well for next few thousand miles and when the car approached around 5k miles, he noticed the crankcase was low about a quart. (He checked the oil religiously,pretty much every week as he traveled quite a bit.)
Sadly, the engine was using about a quart every 8-900 miles. Since it was under warranty, he took it in to the dealer and they eventually replaced the engine.
Their (explanation) was that two of the oil control rings had aligned on the pistons which led to loss of oil control. They said they also were not 'seating" correctly.
He asked them why a brand new engine would do that?? They asked him if he had changed to synthetic before the 5k mark and he told them he did. They told him this was the reasons the rings didn't seat well... the "synth" was too "good" and the parts didn't break-in well.
Now... Ya'll may laugh at this story, but it's true. Who knows if the factory had a bad day installing "rings", or some tech was pissed-off that day? What's interesting is that he took their advice on the new engine and didn't switch to Mobil 1 until after 3 OCI's with conventional oil. He never had a oil consumption issue after that.
I know this sounds stereotypical of why some here adhere to the "break-in" theory, but I remember being there with the mechanics and service managers. They very much advised not to switch over to synthetic until the break-in process was done. (In their case, three or more OCI's of conventional).
