How long do you keep the car? I have had my 2005 Turbo C Cab since new so 5 years and 9200 miles. No issues. Most of my P- cars stay with me for this duration. If you lease and the car is gone in a few years it may start after you are done. Not a bad thing but you do not getthe long term feed back needed to make a proper assesment.

 

Usually about 3-4 years, 5-10K miles/year. Again, my cars are never abused, just carefully exercised early and often with a good mix of driving speeds/RPM's during the first few hundred miles.

I'm just not sure there is a "correct" answer. It seems like a number of manufacturers, vary break-in instruction by country with the U.S. recommendations typically being most conservative.

 

I grew up in Germany. My father had a chauffeur who taught me a lot about driving and how to treat cars. I've always followed his advice for breaking in new cars, with excellent results over many years and for many cars: If possible, drive longer distances, at least an hour of driving for each trip. Try to minimize stop and go driving, pick the open road as much as possible. Change gears a lot; drive even a powerful car as if it had a low-torque engine. Avoid high torque-load driving (i.e. don't lug the engine, don't go full throttle in the high-torque region, even if you are below the recommended max break-in revs). Don't exceed the recommended max revs for break-in, but don't make a fetish of it. Exceeding them occasionally won't hurt. But don't baby the car. Drive it as fast as the rev recommendations allow, but not for long, varying speed. Driving fast was easy to do in Germany in those days when there no speed limits on any highways outside of city, town or village limits.

This advice is from the early '60s and I realize that engines are built with much higher machining precision than in those days. These break-in procedures are not as important anymore as they were then, if still important at all. I still follow them, but it is more to break me in as the driver of the new and unfamiliar car.

It's always worked out for me. Even high oil-consumption cars, like the V8 and V10 M5s and the Ferrari Testarossa, which all started out with a high rate of oil consumption, but settled down to a reasonable quart every 2500 miles or more after about 3000 miles.

It's worked well for my GT2, too.

 

2nd gear to 75 MPH...LOL

All you need are 2 to 3 gears for city driving. Rev it and forget it after the break-in period..the Mezger loves it.

 

The "correct" answer is actually found in the owners manual...unless of course P got it all wrong . P informs the recommended break in on a 997tt is also standard across countries. Like yourself I also find giving it the rare squirt (within the break in period) into the upper revs isnt bad so long as its done in the lower gears, that way the load placed on the engine isnt as demanding as say a full noise WOT in 4th or 5th or 6th. And so long as its not all the time at every opportunity. There is a balance between flogging an engine too early and overly babying the engine.
As you say "carefully exercised" is totally fine imo. Its finding that balance which can be a problem for many. I also go along with robertp where oil changes are concerned.

 

I broke in my ' 03 996 Turbo by the book, warmed up the oil first, run ups and cool downs, varying loads and going through the gears, never over 4200 rpm for the first 2000 miles. That car used oil like a pig, 1 qt every thousand miles. Same with my '07 997 Turbo, burned at least a qt every 1000 miles. My reward for following directions to the T?
I just bought a GT2 RS and damned if I was going to live with another oil burner, especially such and expensive one, so I made the decision to break in hard this time. I left the dealership and immediately went into the canyons, no freeway in between, and ran the daylights out of it, going to redline, 2 nd gear, ran it in hard. The first 37 miles hard on the gas, not abusive and short bursts only.
The next day back to the canyons, so the first 240 miles of hard break in. Followed that method up til now.
900 miles added 1/2 qt, 2300 miles another 1/2 qt.
In my experience the hard break in method is the way to go. Porsche will not recommend this because they know someone will hit the autobahn and run to redline for 2000 miles and blow the engine up.

 

Exactly. Do you think the Porsche race team breaks in its engines by keeping them under 4000 rpm for 1000 miles ... ? The manual is good for explaining how to use the turn indicators ... not how to break in the engine.

 

I love thread revivals!

Porsche racing teams break down their engines regularly for rebuilds - whether or not you follow the manual for break in, the average consumer can't do the same.

On the other hand, I ran a poll a few months ago asking members about oil consumption and break in...although the N value was low, there did not seem to be any definitive correlation between how you break in your engine and oil use.

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...stick-lol.html

 

Thanks for the reply, but I am puzzled by so many owners saying that their cars don't use oil, regardless of how they broke the engine in.
My service rep said the new Panameras and Cayennes are the worst ones for using oil.
As an aside, at about 2000 miles, I did try running some conventional oil in my '07 Turbo for about 1000 miles, hoping to seat the rings better. It may have helped slightly, but it was probably too late. The problem is, 0W-40 is not available in a conventional oil, and a mechanic told me that with the close tolerances in the engine, you need that 0W. Plus Porsche allows only their recommended oils to be used, in order to comply with their warranty requirements.
I wonder is there is any downside to performance when the engine uses oil or not?
My salesman gave me a Porsche oil container pouch/holder which velcro's onto the luggage compartment carpeting! Happily, I don't think I need it after the HARD break in!

 

When we picked up our 2011 911TT the salesman knowing we had a 250 mile trip home told us that for the first 350 miles keep the rpms down below 4000, and don't run steady speed, change gears, change rpms, etc. After that don't track it until 2000 miles but don't worry about an occasional WOT burst either. This is my wifes' DD and it doesn't do track time. She's not afraid to run it WOT either, and it's a 6MT. I'm so proud of her !

At 2000+ miles we have had *ZERO* oil consumption. Going to service it this weekend and I'll measure what actually comes out, but I'm fairly sure the electronic dipstick is pretty close.

When it comes to oils, P recommends a number of different weights including 5w40 and 5w50. I'd run the heaviest you can. I've never had any affinity for 0w oils and find them lacking in a number of areas. Of course we're in sunny FL so we can run heavier stuff year round here. It's been my experience that the heavier oils tend to have less consumption.

--CC

 

In 7600 miles on my 2011 TTS, I haven't added a quart of oil.

Being a mechanical engineer and gearhead, I've rebuilt quite a few automotive and aircraft engines. Here's my two cents worth. Ring seating,including the oil sealing ring, happens within the first few hours of new engine operation. You can really see this in an aircraft engine where cylinder temperature is shown and notndiguised by liquid coolant. When the rings seat, the CHT drops by about 20 deg F. If the rings don't seat properly, the cylinder walls will glaze, leading to oil consumption.

The two enemies of ring seating are operation at constant RPM and constant load. Vary the RPM and vary the load (within reason) and things should go well.

I have seen situations where the rings didn't seat. The solution is to pull the pistons, install new rings, deglaze (hone) the cylinder walls, reassemble, and break in again.

Manufacturers recommend limited speed and load for additional reasons besides engine break in. Bearing seating is occurring in the whole driveline, and the manufacturers want this to be completed before stressing the system.

 

Thanks to all who replied to my post.
My question is that is there a performance issue related to oil consumption? Does oil consumption result from glazing of the cylinder walls? If so, would this glazing negatively affect the compression ratio as well.

 

Generally speaking if you're burning oil, you're leaking compression. How much as a quantifiable number, no telling exactly. If it's 1qt or less per 2000mi I doubt it's much. If it's the 1 qt/600mi that P says is OK, well I'd be complaining loudly.

All of this of course depends on many factors like your driving style, how the car is used, environmental factors, etc.

--CC

 

You have to be careful.

How much oil 'my car' uses is a one-upmanship kind of thing much like who paid the least for the best car. No matter how little oil your car uses, there's always someone who'll report his uses less.

I dare say most drivers don't have much of a clue how much oil their cars use. Take the owner who uses the car for short trips. The oil level will remain unchanged. But the engine is using oil, can be using oil. The water and unburned gas that builds up from the short trips replaces the oil the engine consumes.

How uou use the car, how you drive car, also affects oil consumption. Not everyone drives his car the same way as other drivers drive their cars.

As long as the engine doesn't exhibit any other symptoms or untoward behavior other than using a bit of oil there's no performance hit.

You did the right thing in breaking in the engine the recommended way. There is always some variation between otherwise identical engines and one engine will use little oil compared to the one that came off the assembly line ahead or behind it.

These engines are high performance engines and Porsche fits them with low tension rings to reduce internal engine friction.

Theoretically, that your engine uses a bit more oil may be due to having rings on the low side of allowable tension and thus your engine has less internal friction and could be a better peformer than a comparable engine that uses 'no oil'.

Or your car's AOS is less effective and allows more oil vapor to pass through it and into the intake. IOWs, the oil may not be getting past the rings, but through the AOS.

Relax. You have a very good car. Just take care of it, use a proper/recommended oil and change it and the filter at regular intervals.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

I appreciate your insightfuness. Now its time for the weather to get better and start driving!