Some manufactures including Honda & Subaru have a High moly count oil according to UOAs. The factory oil may be no special oil but, it appears to have added moly & ?. The high moly may have been added to the oil as an additive or it may be that parts are liberally coated with antiwear additives that get in the oil. Subaru recomends the first oil change at 3000 miles and NOT before 1000. I do think the manufacture know more about their engines than I do so I alway follow their recomendations. I don't have the Honda recomendations but certanly would NOT cut the factory recomendation in half or worse.
What happens if you change the breakin oil early?
- Thread starter Eddie
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I dunno - you may be just fine - but I tell you unscientifically at 3200 miles on the 3.5V6 Odyssey with factory oil the engine got a bit more quiet and the city MPG climbed above 20 mpg.
Could be the fuel, but our gas didn't have ethanol unless claimed....I was thinking it was magic break in.
Could be the fuel, but our gas didn't have ethanol unless claimed....I was thinking it was magic break in.
Pablo: Perhaps magic shearing?
Probably nothing....however, you got to wonder why Honda would dose up the moly. Moly isn't cheap, they could save a few bucks per vehicle if they opted to pass on this step. I feel it's there for a reason and that is as Eddie explained. I'd leave it in, which I did for 5K on my new 06 Accord V6. Believe me, that was hard enough because I am was a thorough believer in changing the oil our early to get rid of the excess manufacturing impurities. Was glad to see an actual Honda filter on it.
Nothing bad will happen and probably something good will happen.
You can buy one of the moly-rich additives to add to your current oil if you wanna get the moly back in there.
My bet is that if you just use an oil with a decent amount of moly in it (Havoline, Superflo, Pennzoil) you will be just fine.
Nothing will happen. Absolutely nothing--good or bad. UOA's show proof on my Vue with the Honda 3.5L V6...the engine didn't explode nor start leaking.
I've seen an 05 TSX begin burning a quart of oil every 2000 miles after an early change out of the factory fill with M1, but it was the only case I've heard of.
Crap - my factory fill 5W-20 sheared!
Seriously if you broke the engine in without babying it, you'll be fine.
Seriously if you broke the engine in without babying it, you'll be fine.
Ring seating it controlled by the correct hone for the type of rings, the quality of the rings, and reasonable engine load. Oil has little to do with ring seating so long as it gets a good oil supply.
I been around a fair amount of motors and only know of two factory gas motors that failed to seat the rings. On both these motors the problem was showing up very early with very high oil consumption in the 1st 1000 miles and never letting up until they were replace.
Personally I think you did good by replacing oil early. With the decreased film thickness of 5w 20 oil, seems like machined surfaces and bearings would be less tolerable to running over excess nasty debris such as wear metals.
There seems to be a fairly wide gap in how clean or dirty some motors break in regarding wear metals.
Hondas generally do well. But if you look in the UOA section there is a Toyota 4.0 V6 with a factory fill at around a thousand miles and to me it looks to be a little on the ugly side with over 200 PPM of nasties in it at around 1 K. To me it makes sense to start flushing (via oil change)break in wear metals out sooner rather than later.
Let's just say that someone changes the magic Honda breakin oil after 1,000 miles...hypothetically speaking of course
What is the potential harm? Would the rings not seat correctly? Would it result in excessive oil consumption?
If so, when would you know that you had screwed up...immmediately or later on in the car's life?
Basically, I've already made the 'mistake' and am waiting for the worst to happen...
Thanks;
What is the potential harm? Would the rings not seat correctly? Would it result in excessive oil consumption?
If so, when would you know that you had screwed up...immmediately or later on in the car's life?
Basically, I've already made the 'mistake' and am waiting for the worst to happen...
Thanks;
In my opinion you don't need a break-in oil in the sense that an engine needs some special oil formulation during the first X miles of operation in order to run properly during that period of time and thereafter. So I don't think that there's really any such thing as a "break-in oil". I do think that its a good idea to replace the factory oil and oil filter after whatever number of miles you feel comfortable with to be sure that you're getting rid of any small particles of metal entering the oil from the various engine parts that might have adhered to those parts during the manufacturing process. I personally change the factory oil and filter after 500-1,000 miles.
I changed the factory fill out in our 2005 Accord 4cyl at 750 miles. Yeah, I know, I should have left it in a good bit longer.
But we are at 11,500 miles on it, 4,000 miles into an OCI and it has not used more than 4 oz of oil during this time. I'm running Havoline in it and will be doing 5-6k mile OCI's.
These newer Honda engines are flat out strong, quiet, reliable and just plain good. And I would have thought you couldn't improve on what they had done the last 20 years.
But we are at 11,500 miles on it, 4,000 miles into an OCI and it has not used more than 4 oz of oil during this time. I'm running Havoline in it and will be doing 5-6k mile OCI's.
These newer Honda engines are flat out strong, quiet, reliable and just plain good. And I would have thought you couldn't improve on what they had done the last 20 years.
I tend to agree with Hirev, and have had a similar experience with many new engines over many, many years. My experience is that early (500 miles) and frequent changes out to 3,000 with simple conventional oils always resulted in a strong, oil-tight engine with very long service life.
The only ones I am aware of where early changes resulted in burners is where a synthetic was used a little too soon. This was in the '70s and '80s, however, and it happened right away as a typical example of glazing. A modern production engine seats in much more quickly than in the old days and in most instances is mostly broken in before delivery.
But I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the contrary Honda/VW philosophy of very long runs on the foundary fill. Honda blocks in particular tend to wear very well, so I'm certainly not going to dismiss this approach out of hand without knowing more. I'm starting to perceive that these two makers may stuff their engines full of moly rich assembly lube and want it in there throughout the entire extended break in process.
The only ones I am aware of where early changes resulted in burners is where a synthetic was used a little too soon. This was in the '70s and '80s, however, and it happened right away as a typical example of glazing. A modern production engine seats in much more quickly than in the old days and in most instances is mostly broken in before delivery.
But I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the contrary Honda/VW philosophy of very long runs on the foundary fill. Honda blocks in particular tend to wear very well, so I'm certainly not going to dismiss this approach out of hand without knowing more. I'm starting to perceive that these two makers may stuff their engines full of moly rich assembly lube and want it in there throughout the entire extended break in process.
My 2006 Honda Ridgeline V6-VTEC engine has an OLM. The manual says to follow it and the maintenance minder for most every kind of fluid the thing takes and that includes the first oil change. Since I don't drive the truck in severe service, the OLM takes all the worry out of oil changes, including the factory fill change.
The OLM is calibrated for dino so when I get the service due notice (at 15% oil life expectancy) I change oil with Havoline 5w20. For me, this notice came up about the time I hit the 6000 mile point and as long as I don't change driving habits I can assume it will be around every 6000 miles from now on. Could not be simpler.
The OLM is calibrated for dino so when I get the service due notice (at 15% oil life expectancy) I change oil with Havoline 5w20. For me, this notice came up about the time I hit the 6000 mile point and as long as I don't change driving habits I can assume it will be around every 6000 miles from now on. Could not be simpler.
Honda does not use a special "break-in" oil loaded with moly. What they do is slather engine parts with an assembly lube to prevent scuffing during manufacture. This is what accounts for the high moly content in UOAs of first-change Honda oils.
Typically, the assembly lube is nothing more than a regular motor oil mixed with some molybdenum disulfide paste (yes, that's really all it is).
Pro Honda Moly 60 paste is actually recommended in OEM Honda service manuals as the special ingredient to use when creating their recommended assembly lube.
Nothing magic -- just good assembly technique.
Typically, the assembly lube is nothing more than a regular motor oil mixed with some molybdenum disulfide paste (yes, that's really all it is).
Pro Honda Moly 60 paste is actually recommended in OEM Honda service manuals as the special ingredient to use when creating their recommended assembly lube.
Nothing magic -- just good assembly technique.
If anything, I would think high moly levels would hinder a proper break-in. It's been suggested that you shouldn't convert to full-synthetics until after full break-in occurs (which there is much debate about as well...I've heard anywhere from 50 to 6000 miles.) If they don't want you slicking up your un-broken-in engine with full syns, why would they want it to be full of moly? I've had great luck getting rid of the factory fill at 1000 miles and converting to full syn at 3000.
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