New Defender News

[Carson G]

Break in? What exactly breaks in?

As someone who’s built engines, break in mainly involves getting the piston rings to seat properly against the cylinder walls. Beyond that the bearing surfaces may wear in some but that’s pretty much it.

 

[Carson G]

Manual for the Defender states there is a 2,000 mile break-in period. It's clear as day. When I was growing up, the saying was "drive it hard but take it easy," meaning you need to give it some beans from time to time, vary the engine speed frequently, but never redline it or stress the engine with heavy loads.

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Which is exactly what I said.

 

[Carson G]

I doubt break-in period or altitude is the issue. The 10,000 ft perspective would say manufacturers would not be able to sell into areas of the intermountain west. Taking the Defender on a off road journey to 10K is actually a pretty mild workload profile of long drives and low rpm's. In fact it is almost an ideal break-in workload profile of varied rpm's and work.

I agree

 

[Red90]

As someone who’s built engines, break in mainly involves getting the piston rings to seat properly against the cylinder walls. Beyond that the bearing surfaces may wear in some but that’s pretty much it.

Ring break in happens in 10 to 30 minutes.

 

[DieselRanger]

I doubt break-in period or altitude is the issue. The 10,000 ft perspective would say manufacturers would not be able to sell into areas of the intermountain west. Taking the Defender on a off road journey to 10K is actually a pretty mild workload profile of long drives and low rpm's. In fact it is almost an ideal break-in workload profile of varied rpm's and work.

If you're on the Interstate, yes. But offroading at elevation means low speed and high RPMs in Low Range. Good for the low range gearbox, maybe not so good for the engine depending on how they treated it, which of course they do not show.

 

[jdlobb]

If you're on the Interstate, yes. But offroading at elevation means low speed and high RPMs in Low Range. Good for the low range gearbox, maybe not so good for the engine depending on how they treated it, which of course they do not show.

yeah that's what i was wondering. What kind of offroading involves long drives at low rpms?

 

[Todd n Natalie]

How do we know it was not broken in properly before being taken off road or to 10,000 ft?

 

[Carson G]

How do we know it was not broken in properly before being taken off road or to 10,000 ft?

We don’t really the only thing we have to go off of is the mileage that issue presented itself and what the manual says.

 

[Carson G]

Ring break in happens in 10 to 30 minutes.

That’s correct in most cases especially with older engines running non synthetic oil. The break that Land Rover has listed in the manual probably doesn’t just involve the engine but the whole driveline which needs to wear in. Isn’t the usual mileage for diff break in like 500 miles with no hard acceleration or towing? The engine itself is probably ready to go in the first day or so of driving.

 

[DieselRanger]

As someone who’s built engines, break in mainly involves getting the piston rings to seat properly against the cylinder walls. Beyond that the bearing surfaces may wear in some but that’s pretty much it.

So having done a number of oil analyses on my Td6 with Blackstone, you see a lot of metals from the cylinders and rings that drop off pretty quick over the first oil change interval - they didn't stabilize with mine until well into the 2nd oil change interval, around 12-14k miles, and you definitely see small changes up or down over time when I drive it harder over a given period or if it's mostly driving around town. I'm at 40K+ and I'm pretty much right in the middle of their universal averages (21 engine sample size for the Td6 engine). But diesels break in more slowly than gassers.

 

[Corgi_express]

How do we know it was not broken in properly before being taken off road or to 10,000 ft?

They posted a video where they took it off road at over 10k feet with a hundred miles on the odometer.

 

[jdlobb]

They posted a video where they took it off road at over 10k feet with a hundred miles on the odometer.

even if that's not what caused their problem, in what universe did they think that was a good idea?

 

[mpinco]

In reality 4-lo releaves the stress on an engine as the rpms are varied over a typical range. Even better for engine break-in! It's the low rpm lugging that should be avoided during break-in.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

Just out of curiosity? Anyone ever work at a car dealership? Those new cars are bagged from the moment they are driven off the truck by everyone who test drives them.

Not buying the break in thing. I'm sure lots of people have taken their brand spankin new Rovers off road to play with their new toy and not broken it. I think TFL just got a lemon.

 

[DieselRanger]

It's the low rpm lugging that should be avoided during break-in.

And the high engine speeds with abrupt stops.