Long distance running in

[Sharkie]

Taking delivery of our new Multi on Tuesday morning in Canberra.

then driving it in 1 go to Brisbane ..... 1200km

what is the best way to run this in, bearing in mind I want to get the trip over and done with ASAP ....

Hawk, especially interested to hear what you did when you fetched the red 1 interstate ....

Thanks ....

[brasstinman]

I've always been told by motorcycle mechanics and car mechanics never to sit at the same speed for too long and give it some stick and open it up but don't red line it.
Giving it some stick opens up the engine and gets it nice and loose rather then keeping it all tight and getting from it's potential and not sitting at the same speed constantly ensures the engine isn't laboring along wearing at a certain RPM.
After all the engines are tested in the factory so they're already got some KM on the clock before you trip meter is hooked up so we shouldn't be afraid to drive it.
You hear all these stories of people not wanting to go over 3000 RPM and using a light foot etc. The mechanics always told me that is the worst thing you can do to a new engine.

My mate had an ex-demo SS and you know people are going to drive that hard on the test drives and when he took it in for a dyno it had more than the factory spec'd kW. Nothing was done to the car, all stock standard but when he told the dyno guy he bought it as a demo the guy reckons that was why it was so nice in the kW department.
And my mate has a heavy foot even when he first bought the car and it's still going strong today and it's 8 years old. He just ensures he gets it serviced on time and changes the oil between services which is key to a long lasting engine.

[Tornado T5]

I'd go easy on the brakes so as to not "hot spot" them. Regarding the engine, I've always driven the first 1000 trying to vary the engine speed as much as possible and avoiding very long idling times or long constant high speed runs (low revs). Driving at freeway speeds for very long periods means your engine will only be sitting between 1600-1800rpm so I would try to vary the revs by manually dropping down a gear and avoiding labouring as well. Either way you need to drive safely within traffic conditions anyway.

[Sharkie]

Thanks Guys, I've run in many cars before, and have always given it lots from the moment I picked it up and have never had any issues. Also always made more than most "stock" on a dyno as well.

However, this is my 1st new diesel (2nd hand only before) and the 1st time I'll be doing 1200km immediately after picking it up, so am particularly keen on ideas on how to get this done. Playing through the gears is fine, but how long do I keep in a specific gear and at specific revs without driving me nuts? Any ideas ?

[Transporter]

Short burst of acceleration and deceleration every 2-3 minutes, that's what I would do, if driving for longer time on the hwy.

[The_Hawk]

It was suggested to me not to use the cruise control for the first 1,500km. I have to assume this is because your then likely to go up and and down speed (and revs) rather than sitting very constant.

I was up and down on the way out of Melbourne and did play a little on the way home slowing down and speeding up (although it was probably more about seeing what the van can do ). I can't say as I took any special care otherwise. I think these days the cars are pretty well run in that first bit out of the factory and the rest is virtually "normal" operating.

As for keeping the Multi in a gear... if your keen to do that, just flick the lever over to sport and drop to the required gear

There are still the two schools of thought on the whole running in thing. Either baby it or ride it hard (after getting to temp of course). The ride it hard crowd say you need to ride it hard to wear in the rings and things properly as you get the temps in the right range to get things bedded properly. The claim being that if you drive too nicely it doesn't happen right. The treat it nice crowd have almost the reverse argument.

Personally I tend to subscribe to the drive it hard school (especially in the VR) and it hasn't caused any ill effects (so far) in any of our new cars over the years.

[Cousin]

Sharkie, I pretty much go along with Hawk on this one

I've always been taught after the first corner it's run in

And yeah I'd leave cruise alone

Having bit of a play coming home will stop you going to sleep too!


Just enjoy it and forget about worrying


And safe driving home



M

[Philbie]

I did 300 k's the first day in mine and have kept it simple, no cruise, no towing and vary the speed, that's it.....so far so good, it had a wash today. but I'd say just go for it, that first 1200 k's will be real good for it!

They get moving quick, so keep your eye on the tachometer, and keep it under the red line

[STV4SYT]

Cruise is generally bad but on a long run pretty hard to not use it if its there. On Bikes and Cars if i have to do a freeway run, i maintain a constant speed but will toggle 4th 5th and 6th gears - with cruise on in manual mode it will match revs from memory.

Also subscribe to the run it in hard school of though but without being an idiot and bouncing off the redline. the other thing coming from the bike side of things is that engine braking is important to the process too, I find on the GTI with DSG that i have now adopted the practise of using S mode for engine braking as it gives some aggressive downshifts.

[Preen59]

Short burst of acceleration and deceleration every 2-3 minutes, that's what I would do, if driving for longer time on the hwy.

Gotta agree with this.

And that's really all you need to do. People worry far too much about this stuff.

Just lean on it hard if and when you can and don't rev the snot out of it..

[Sharkie]

Thanks for everybody's input, much appreciated. Will post an update of how it went on Wednesday. Now to go stock up on some V's .....

[Seano]

My run-in drive on the TDi T4 was Sydney to Bourke. I used the cruise control. Every ten minutes or so on the open road I changed speeds in 10km/h increments between 90 and 110km/h - shifted revs from 1800 to 2900 rpm. In every town, I used the gear range as much as possible.

And so it was to 1500km and an oil swap.

After that.....we drove to Perth via Esperance and Albany. Where it received its first full service...

That was 165,000 km ago. Still runs sweet.

[Sharkie]

Made it back to Brisbane in just over 12 hours .... 1240kms Had it in manual mode all the way and kept on swapping between the gears to give the engine a good workout .... starting gently with more revs as kms went by ....

This what it looked like this morning .... lots of bugs !



And after a whash ....

[rob64981]

We/I can not see the picture with the bugs.

Can you sort it so we can have a look please?

Thanks Rob

[Guy_H]

Love the colour!