Alternative Break-In Procedure

Hi PriusFan808,
I also read that article and others, including some airplane engine break-in procedures, before my Prius was delivered.
On my Prius, I used pretty much the break-in procedure in the article except for the full throttle accelerations.
The main reason I didn't do the full throttle accelerations was that because of the instructions in the owners manual I feared it might have voided my warranty, since I suspect they can read out of the computer if the car has been driven full throttle. Then, after the initial break-in procedure, I ran it fairly hard for a few hours on a hilly autobahn.

At 15,000 km I had the oil changed with Mobil1 0W-30.

It now has 20,000 km, no measurable oil consumption, runs perfectly, and gets good mileage.

Of course, as you have already noted from Hobbit, qbee42 and the other Fred, since the hybrid system normally runs the engine under high load anyway, it probably does a pretty does a pretty good job of breaking itself in.

In any case, my Prius has suffered no ill effects from the "run it hard" break-in method.

 

I used the alternative breakin procedure which I had read about here when I was lurking before I bought my 2008 Touring.

When I left the dealer in Rhode Island enroute Ballamer, the ODO read 13 mi. As I recalled the high loading should occur in the first 20 mi. So, as soon as I was on a limited access highway, I put on my flashers and rolled to a stop in the breakdown lane. As soon as traffic permitted, I accelerated very briskly up to 65 MPH. (I wish I had thought ahead and gotten a ScanGuage before I picked up the car so could say what the revs were.)

I repeated the high loading twice more as I ran south in Connecticut by exiting I-95 and reentering, accelerating more briskly each time.

Barring data taken at the time, cylinder pressures I suspect, I don't know that I'll ever really know if the proceedure will help/hurt over the long haul. I'm currently at 3500+ miles, getting +/- 50 MPG on 28 mi. daily round trip commute, temps variously low 30s to High 40s deg F.

I've got no MPG complaints at this time.