supermech21

Did you guys baby your truck to a certain mileage or drive it normal as soon as you bought it? I have heard two very different theories on engine break in: 1 drive it like you stole it to seat the rings... 2 baby it for a thousand miles then start breaking it in. But doesnt ford perform some sort of a engine break in to test for failure prior to shipping from michigan?

I have pretty much babied my truck except for about 3 pulls, truck has 250 miles.

egbertnr

Drive it normal, avoid extremes in either direction.

Razorback150

Drove it like I stole it, for the first 100 miles. Then stayed off the long hwy trips for the first 1000. Driven normal ever since, 4300 miles and counting. I have done all my new motors this way, bikes, cars and trucks, never a problem.

n0xas

I didn't do anything special. Kind of babied it for the first couple of weeks, but other than that and no heavy towing under 1K miles, I don't think there is a real need for break-in.

My last vehicles got nearly no break-in. I bought a ;98 Mustang V6, and a week later took a job that had me commuting 45 miles each way on the Interstate. The next one was an '03 Sport Trac, and a couple hundred miles in we had to drive 1200 miles for a funeral -- in a group of cars doing 80+ the whole way there and back. Neither of those showed any ill effects.

You'll hear a dozen different philosophies, from hundreds of different people. I don't recall ever hearing of someone finding a break-in strategy that did not work out well. Thus I would conclude that engine break-in is (within reason) not an issue.