How Not to Break-in Your C7 Engine

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breakin

Break-in procedures are important. The new C7’s throttle is tempting. This creates a situation where the devil is on one shoulder telling you to “go for it” and the angel is on the other telling you,”It’s only a 500-mile break-in period.” When the devil wins — which apparently is more often than I’d first assumed — there magically seems to be a device handy to record the evil deed, as covered in one of our forum posts about the video below.

Perhaps I’m talking that up a bit, but realistically speaking, it’s not difficult to be patient till your odometer trips over the five-century mark. Take the long way home from work, go show it off to your best friends, be left in awe by the endless low-end torque, but please, be gentle. Chevrolet even programmed in a reminder to keep things below 3,500 RPM. You may think nothing of a few prods of the gas pedal early on, but the greatest change in engine surface area happens in those first few hundred miles. Could you get away with a few impulsive runs up to 60? That’s the risk you’d have to be willing to take.

We’ll leave you with something that should generate discussion. What do you think of the conspiracy that says the break-in period is designed to increase the likelihood the car will break down after the warranty period instead of before?

Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>

Patrick Morgan is an instructor at Chicago's Autobahn Country Club and contributes to a number of Auto sites, including MB World, Honda Tech, and 6SpeedOnline. Keep up with his latest racing and road adventures on Twitter and Instagram!


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