Littlejerry

I checked the manual and it said the break in period was the first 600miles and all it said was to not "race the engine". Does anyone have any more specifics? What RPM to keep it under?

600 miles sounds like a very short break in period...

Roddimus Prime

the dealership didn't explain to you your break-in period?? What does it take to get some decent customer service nowadays???

I would keep the engine sub-4K rpms, no clutch dumps, no tire-spinning, no excessive braking, no loading it up or towing, etc..

Jeffro426

Youll get mixed opinions everywhere you go about break in...some say run it hard, some say run it easy. I do a little of both...ill let it rev a bit but wont hold it there all day long. Keep the RPMS varying. Just drive it normal...not over revving and not lugging it around. Start-up is more important than break-in i believe...if you just jump in and start hotrodding it, its not gonna last. Make sure you do an oil change after you put your first 1000 on it, then every 3000-5000 after that and it should last a long time.

X5Racer

Break in period for any car is 5,000 miles. If you race your car or redline it a lot before the breakin period you risk blowing gaskets, frying piston rings, or even blowing your transmission.

tastade

Typically you want to keep the engine revs less than about 2/3rds of redline during breakin. This number is just approximate and based on my past experience. So with a 6500 RPM redline you would want to keep it under about 4300.

The book states 600 miles for the break in period, but really the first 5000 miles or so would be more reasonable. You dont want to drive it to 600 miles without revving it above 4000 rpms, then at 601 run it to redline. You want to slowly change how you drive, working your way up to higher and higer revs. So be really careful over the first 600 miles, varying speeds regularly, no cruise control, and once you hit 600, drive it carefully and slowly change to your normal driving habits up until about 5000 miles, than drive it normally. Just as a tip with the 5 speed manual, follow the books shift schedules, shifting at about 3000 rpms, and you will be just fine.

Other advice I have heard from racers is to break in your engine how you are going to drive it. If you drive it hard, break it in quickly. If you drive slower and want the best gas mileage and life, break it in slowly and gently. Engine break in and normal driving habits will effect the life of the engine, driving hard will probably cut it by 50% (or more if you break something).

I would suggest following Mazda's recommendation for the first oil change, because they might use specially formulated oil for the first fill up to assist with break in. I doubt it would have much effect if you do change it early though (say at 1000 or 2000 miles).

bob teatow

Yeah, I've been taking it easy - shifting up when I hit 3000-3500 rpm. But when I'm trying to merge into heavy traffic in a hurry I've found the engine will easily spin up to over 5000 for a second or two even when I didn't mean to.... Nice to have the extra power compared to my last little econo-box. Hope that didn't "hurt" anything?

Of course there's nothing wrong with driving it easy for the life of the car - you'll have less maintenance problems and expense.