I have had the pleasure of breaking in three vehicles, that doens't
make me a expert by any means, but...
I think one of the things that is important is not to drive at constant
speeds for extened periods of time, during the first 500 miles. I have also
been lead to believe that you should drive pretty close to your noramal
driving style.(I say pretty close, becasue if your normal driving style
is either extreemly whimpy, or overly aggressive then I think your doing
the break in wrong) On all three of the new vehicles I broke in, I tried
to consciously drive the vehicle as if I had a job to do, and not like
I was just driving. I would drive slow, then fast, then moderate, then
slow, then fast, ect... People on the highways probably though I was nuts
I would be driving 45 on minute, and 70 or so then next... after the
first 100 miles or so, I did not hesitate to make some ocasional full
throtle accelerations either. With my Dakota(96 V8 SLE club cab 4x4) I
had so much fun driving it, that I did the first 500 miles in 2 days
and remember, I was intentinaly driving this 500 miles like I was on
a mission to never drive a constant speed for more then a minute or
so... I had fun, but I get head aches from that new car smell...
my windows were down most of the time...
My brother who is a mechanic, told me that with a new car there
reall isn't much to be concerned about at break in... He said dive
it like you normaly would... He also said that it will never run that
good again, so enjoy it while it runs at more or less optimal levels.
He was basicly right, about it not running as good later... Now that
I have 7000 miles on it, it will barely spin the tires from a dead
stop, before I had 1000 miles on it, it would spin for about 10 feet
then go...(note I have a V8, auto, stock tires, and anti-spin diff)
As others have said, not running in fourwheel drive on dry pavement
is do to drive line binding, which is casued by slight differances in
final driveline components, like tire wear, tire pressure, ect...
I live in Souther Michigan, where snow is not unheard of and neither
is salt. I run into difficult decisions to make when the roads are half
snow and ice, and half just wet. I always felt like wet is the same
as "dry" and I hate to drive on pavement that is just wet when I'm in
four wheel drive. Yet I also would hate to hit a snowy area of the
road and not be in four wheel drive since with my V8 and anti slip
diff, I find it's very easy to wind up driving sideways unexpectadly...
So I never know exactly when to take it out of fourwheel drive in
these half snow and half wet pavement condtions...
On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, Actor Troy McClure wrote:
> Hi:
>
> Does anyone have any tips for the break-in of my new Dakota? I've
> read the manual and it's not too specific. The only thing it really
> says is too avoid high speeds when the truck is new. I haven't been
> beating the heck out of the engine but I have "put my foot into it" a
> few times at the stop lights.
>
> Everyone I have talked to says "Never drive a truck in 4wd on dry
> pavement". Does anyone know the real reason? The manual says it
> will increase tire wear.
>
> Thanks in advance for any tips.
>
> =Scott
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:07:28 EDT