Run in procedure - Polo Gti

[Speshboy]

Hi there,

Just wondering what the correct run in procedure is for the Gti. Anything specific? Asked the dealer and he said I should just drive it hard right from the start. Is that right?

[gavs]

Search is your friend, my friend

[bigfoot]

drive it like you stole it

vary the speed and RPM, avoid cruise control for the first 1000km or so

[RandomX]

drive it like you stole it

vary the speed and RPM, avoid cruise control for the first 1000km or so

^ this

[Speshboy]

Picked up my little beast today. Took it for a sprited drive along the old pacific hwy (nice stretch of twisty road for those not familiar). Felt awesome. Tried to keep it to about 4000rpm but went to 5000rpm a few times. Was just too tempting. Tried to vary the revs and speed abit. Found myself using 4th gear a lot. Hopefully this is the right way of running this thing in and I avoid the dreaded high oil consumption problem.

[kevinctr]

From the so many oil consumption complaints from owners all over the world for all models of VW, I came to the conclusion that gentle engine break in do not work on VW. My chance of having an oil burning engine is 50% be it gentle or hard run in I concluded.

This is my method of running in and I will report back the result as time goes by.
100km- Load up the engine on various gears below 3000rpm with half throttle.
200km- Occasional full thottle to 5000rpm and load the engine up on manual mode 7th gear with half throttle from 1500rpm tilll 5000rpm.
300km- Find a small hill and climb up using the highest gear possible on manual mode. example 3rd gear 2000rpm 1/4 throttle till peak then cruise down on 2nd gear using engine brake most of the time.
350km - Short burst of sprinting on a long straight road reving till Redline from 1st till 5th gear or speed of around 200km/h then use engine brake to slow to 40km/h then 200km/h again. Total of 3 times. Trying to let the clutch plates settle in also.
500km- Change oil and original filter out replace with cheap American Mobil 1 5W30.
500km- 2 full power dyno run done to get a baseline power.
500-1100km- Drive as normal but daily redline on at least first 3 gears.
1100km- Change oil & filter again using cheap American Mobil 1 5W30. Change DSG Oil!!!
1200km- Did 3 times 0-225km/h pull on the straight highway with 5mins cooling down in between. Did not want to stress the engine too much so let off at 225km/h. Vmax shd be 230km/h.
Future 2000km- Change oil and filter again and go to the same dyno for a power run to compare the power curve from the 1st.

Points to note.
1. Make sure your oil is at least 90 degrees celcius before you load or rev up your engine.
2. DO NOT IDLE your engine for more than 5mins. Switch it off and restart if possible.
3. After every hard rev, try to use engine brake to slow the car for a few seconds each time.
4. Even though the GTI has a power assisted cooling circulation system to cool the turbo bearing down when engine is shut off, try to idle the car for 1min before shutting it down.
4. If you have a mountain around your area, drive up using the highest gear possible and keep rpm to below 3000rpm. Cruise down using engine brake then drive straight to a workshop to have the oil changed out.
5. Follow my method at your own risk but oil change done more often wont hurt anything other than your wallet.

[ATYPIC]

Points to note.
1. Make sure your oil is at least 90 degrees celcius before you load or rev up your engine.
2. DO NOT IDLE your engine for more than 5mins. Switch it off and restart if possible.
3. After every hard rev, try to use engine brake to slow the car for a few seconds each time.
4. Even though the GTI has a power assisted cooling circulation system to cool the turbo bearing down when engine is shut off, try to idle the car for 1min before shutting it down.
4. If you have a mountain around your area, drive up using the highest gear possible and keep rpm to below 3000rpm. Cruise down using engine brake then drive straight to a workshop to have the oil changed out.
5. Follow my method at your own risk but oil change done more often wont hurt anything other than your wallet.

In the grand scheme of the current problems all your points are valid and note worthy. Of course the gentle engine break-in won't yield better results but its becoming more apparent that neither is the alternate approach and yes I know some will beg to differ. What staggers me is the growing amount of cars that haven't even reached 2000km on the dial and are getting engine replacements already.

I've just had my 15k service done at Euroclass and the guy there was totally gob smacked and blank in the face when informed I had put close to 7 litres of oil in it since new. Its total lunacy that owners of these vehicles have to tolerate and manage such problems all the while VW dealerships continue to dribble their bulls#it innuendo whilst trying to convince us the high oil consumption does not exceed standard operating usage...blah blah blah!

I'm totally over it. EOR! Back to work now.

[Acko1991]

That sounds like a lot of hassle for a car you just bought brand new....Its not a fookin race car lol......That just sounds over complicated and ridiculous.

And if people can afford oil changes every 2000km's why didn't you buy a higher end market car.

[Transporter]

From the so many oil consumption complaints from owners all over the world for all models of VW, I came to the conclusion that gentle engine break in do not work on VW. My chance of having an oil burning engine is 50% be it gentle or hard run in I concluded.

This is my method of running in and I will report back the result as time goes by.
100km- Load up the engine on various gears below 3000rpm with half throttle.
200km- Occasional full thottle to 5000rpm and load the engine up on manual mode 7th gear with half throttle from 1500rpm tilll 5000rpm.
300km- Find a small hill and climb up using the highest gear possible on manual mode. example 3rd gear 2000rpm 1/4 throttle till peak then cruise down on 2nd gear using engine brake most of the time.
350km - Short burst of sprinting on a long straight road reving till Redline from 1st till 5th gear or speed of around 200km/h then use engine brake to slow to 40km/h then 200km/h again. Total of 3 times. Trying to let the clutch plates settle in also.
500km- Change oil and original filter out replace with cheap American Mobil 1 5W30.
500km- 2 full power dyno run done to get a baseline power.
500-1100km- Drive as normal but daily redline on at least first 3 gears.
1100km- Change oil & filter again using cheap American Mobil 1 5W30. Change DSG Oil!!!
1200km- Did 3 times 0-225km/h pull on the straight highway with 5mins cooling down in between. Did not want to stress the engine too much so let off at 225km/h. Vmax shd be 230km/h.
Future 2000km- Change oil and filter again and go to the same dyno for a power run to compare the power curve from the 1st.

Points to note.
1. Make sure your oil is at least 90 degrees celcius before you load or rev up your engine.
2. DO NOT IDLE your engine for more than 5mins. Switch it off and restart if possible.
3. After every hard rev, try to use engine brake to slow the car for a few seconds each time.
4. Even though the GTI has a power assisted cooling circulation system to cool the turbo bearing down when engine is shut off, try to idle the car for 1min before shutting it down.
4. If you have a mountain around your area, drive up using the highest gear possible and keep rpm to below 3000rpm. Cruise down using engine brake then drive straight to a workshop to have the oil changed out.
5. Follow my method at your own risk but oil change done more often wont hurt anything other than your wallet.

Good points there, especially yours "Points to note".

However your:
100km - the rpms are to low.
The rest of the running in should be as below:
I always use the rpms up to 3,500 and even 4,000 on a gear change, but don't hold the speed there. Use the spirited driving but wait till the engine is fully warmed up (this is very important) and then drive in the S mode, if you have the DSG, making sure you don't overheat the engine. I use hills and make sure the engine gets heaps of decelerations as well. Do that till 1500km. Change that engine oil and filter between 1000-1,500km and use VW approved oil. If you have to use the full throttle, don't hold the speed there.
To ideally run the engine in, you have only few hundreds of kms from new.

I run in quite a few engines and never had the excessive oil usage problem. My son's in law RS Octavia TSI was run in like that too and I've just changed the oil in it after 12,000km driving and have drained the same amount of oil I put in. He topped up 0.25L from the 1L bottle I put in the boot when he bought the car 18 months ago. That 0.25L is for the total of 26,000km.

However, the Polo engines might have some problems from new.
I would try to load the car more, maybe it's too light and once moving the engine doesn't have to work that hard.
Run it in in the hills or on dyno, if you can.

[gavs]

The best way to run in an engine is to run it in on a dyno, but people forget that these motors are actually pre run-in at the engine plant. If you have access to a VAGCOM unit, you can actually see the test bench number that the motor was run on.

TO be honest, i did the hard run in and I took mine redline probably 5-6 times in the first 100kms. You know how much oil I have put in after 23000kms? 2 litres. NO jokes or manipulation of numbers, I literally have put in 2 litres. I don't understand the reluctance to go to redline because at that speed and temperature in the motor itself, things expand and with the higher rpm, you are able to ensure that the pistons and rings match up better to the cylinder wall along the entire piston stroke so a lip doesn't form at the top of the piston's travel at full rpms.

BUT. And this is a big but.

No matter which run-in proceedure you take, there is no escaping the fact that the manufacturing tolerances of these motors and indeed many modern VW group motors, is rubbish. No matter how well you run a motor in, if you have ring-to-cylinderwall clearances of .25 of a mm, you're always going to use oil, simple as that.

[Diesel_vert]

No matter which run-in proceedure you take, there is no escaping the fact that the manufacturing tolerances of these motors and indeed many modern VW group motors, is rubbish. No matter how well you run a motor in, if you have ring-to-cylinderwall clearances of .25 of a mm, you're always going to use oil, simple as that.

Bingo.

The excessive oil consumption problem is a due to a design fault and/or quality control issues.

It's hard to imagine that this problem (which affects customers worldwide) would simply be due to whatever run-in procedure is followed or otherwise.

[ATYPIC]

It's hard to imagine that this problem (which affects customers worldwide) would simply be due to whatever run-in procedure is followed or otherwise.

Bingo again!

Here's your new car sir, and here's your Dummies 101 booklet on how to prevent your oil drinking car from drinking even more oil.

[Transporter]

Not all Polo GTI engines have high oil consumption. There are plenty of threads with similar topic. I closed this one and will merge it with the suitable thread when I find one. Otherwise there would be too many similar topics.