Break-in driving

The engine RPMs are not directly related to your speed. A conventional break-in strategy is not required, or for that matter, possible. The Prius owner's manual says only, avoid hard braking in the first 200 miles, and don't race the engine in the first 600 miles. Others have here reported similar pickup break-in trips with no problems. In fact the long initial trip may prevent a temporary pseudo-problem that sometimes happens, a check engine light caused by some initial gunk burning off the engine and fooling a particular sensor.

When you go take a copy of the pickup checklist: http://www.vfaq.net/docs/pickup_checklist.html

Also, while sitting in the car and *before driving off the lot*, make yourself take 20 minutes to read the introductory section of the owner's manual, and at least skim the rest of it.

 

Geoff,
Personally, I wouldn't have any reservations about the 900 mile drive.
As long as you avoid engaging the ABS below 200 miles, and you don't rev the engine or go above 80 mph within the first 600 miles, I wouldn't worry.
Like Richard was saying, a few owners have had their MIL (malfunction indicator light) illuminate in the first 100 miles because some of their undercoating started burning and was confused the O2 sensor I believe. I myself didn't have this problem, but driving straight through that 100 miles will most likely ensure you won't have any problems. Vehicles now require less of a break in period, but of course, be fairly gentle. Also, vary your speed on the highway; the "transmission" familiarizes itself with your driving habits when you first drive the car.
Finally, keep in mind, that if you don't break in the car properly you won't see the effects until tens of thousands of miles down the road, but you don't want your car to burn oil at 60,000 miles.
Enjoy your Prius

 

I would avoid hard braking for 200 miles after your get back to your home towm. Assume that Toyota figures on the car being bought locally and gets normal city driving for most of the first 200 miles.

 

I'm not convinced that modern cars need a break-in at all, especially since the prius doesn't have a break-in mode

I've seen many of my customers who don't baby or push their (conventional) cars during the early miles, and I don't hear of hardly anyone aside from Prius owners and wannabees (myself included) and performance car buffs (corvette etc.) talking about break-in

obviously a green (new) car will not perform as well as a car that has all of its parts set, but I think that "Just Drive it" would allow the parts to do their thing. Afterall aside from the optional burn in test, computers don't have a break-in period, similar kinds of performance gains in manufacturing, I do remember my first few PCs had to be burned-in (to see if they would fail before certain warrenty periods wore off, so we ran those machines as hard as they would go to make sure that they could handle whatever we threw at them)

 

Few computers need to seat their valve seals and piston rings, or seat their brake pads to their discs and drums.

The previous posters' point about no hard braking in the first 200 miles of city driving makes sense. 200 miles of highway driving with little or no braking gives little or no opportunity to seat the brake components.

 

My break-in trip (last Saturday) was great. I posted it in Order Tracking under Aug. 20 -> Escanaba, MI.

350 miles home; half a tank of gas. Highway speeds gradually increased between Escanaba and Green Bay.

I anticipated a Check Engine light (O2 sensor) or funny smell (a bit of rustproofing that we knew was on the tailpipe). But these did NOT occur.

Nav and audio were delightful, also. See my list of the tunes I played (not for everyone's taste, I'm sure).

 

my trip home from the dealer was 1822Kms. 1140 miles and not a problem. Out of the dealers shop, down to a gas station to pump up the tires and hit the TansCanada Hiway and took it to 114Km. per hour on cruise and sat back and let it do it's thing. The small hills and valleys took the engine RPM up and down just like you'd do to break in an engine. Worked perfectly as far as I'm concerened and by the time I got to the mountain passes I was long past 800Km so didn't even worry about it at all. 900 miles..... it's a cake walk for this car.

 

I felt the same things you are feeling. I had the Heebie Jeebies. Trust me I went through every scenario. 700+ miles from Helena MT to Olympia WA. I made my son follow me the first 2 1/2 hours to Missoula MT. Mind you he got a great dinner and a few CD at a great head shop in Missoula near the University. The drive home was great!!! No problems. Just drive it. I mean it. I went over 3 major Rocky Mountain Passes plus a Cascade Mountain Pass. Good weather not too hot mid 80's to upper 80's. The car performed flawlessly. Really Trust and Just Drive it. My only regret is that I only got 49.6 m.p.g. on the trip. On a good note it went up through the trip!!

 

My point was that you could do this with normal driving in a conventional auto, so the prius should be "Just Drive it" from pick-up to trade-in, no?

I was also asking that since modern break-in periods are so darned short, are they approching a yesteryear sort of thing, like leaded gas, and engines that don't stop at stoplights?

 

I think the best advice is don't "jump on it" either the accelerator or the break, if you can help it. The breaking thing is beyond your control but avoid the situations where you might have to break heavily. After that you are good.

 

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Umm.. I guess I'm not following you. Toyota *does* recommend a specific break-in procedure, it's just a simpler and easier-to-follow one than was recommended for old-style cars.

 

the only real breakin procedure to follow is run the engine above idle for the first 20 minutes to seat the rockers to the camshaft. I say rockers as there is no lifters in this OHC engine. This has been standard procedure for at least 25 years. On every engine I've rebuilt I've followed this advice and never had a problem. I used to do 7-15 engines a year for 9 years for a former employer. Since this new job buy's most of their engines rebuilt I only do 1-2 a year now

 

GeoffM my dealer was 3,000 miles away. The the car had 2 miles on it when I bought it and 250 miles on it before I even got back to our hotel.

It's a long story but you can look it up on here if you scan through my posts.

Bottom line, don't worry about it.

Ummmmm... Let me guess, you are leasing it too, right?

 

Hi Folks,

I live in Reno, NV and purchased my Prius in Helena, MT. Took me all day to fly from Reno to Helena, approximately thirty minutes to purchase the Prius and just under twenty hours to drive home. Started out with a few miles on the odometer and arrived home with 980+ clocked.

Drove through rain, sleet, a little snow and over the Continental Divide. The Prius averaged around 44 mpg during the trip. I didn’t spend too much time over 65 mph: I basically enjoyed a leisurely drive home.

One thing I would definitely recommend. Spend at least a little time with the manual before you take off! I blocked the driveway into a McDonalds while reading my manual trying to figure out why the Prius would “start†but not go…

Now, just having a little over five thousand miles I am averaging low 50 mpg and love the Prius.