[paul r]

So , I took delivery of my van on February of 06. It had 31 miles on it as I purchased it through a broker and figured it was sourced from a not to near dealer. Who knows how it was driven to the pick up point. But that did not deter me from doing my version of breaking in the van , especially with oil changes. I recently transferred my written maintenance history from the maintenance booklet into my computer in a spread sheet format. The columns created were date , mileage , work performed and notes. One item that stood out ( this was 15 years ago ) was the oil change periods when I first got the van.
Within a period of 8 months with 4600 miles I did 4 oil changes ( using dino oil). The changes were done at 623 miles , 1181 , 2039 , 4572 miles. From then on between 5k-6k miles to present. Do you think this was excessive? The van drives like the first day I got it! So why my interest now? Well a family member has new Honda CRV and was told what the break in procedure is and is nothing compared to what I did. I suppose after 15 years or so, a stringent break in procedure when it comes to oil changes intervals is not required anymore. So if you purchased a new generation 2 Sienna in those years , 04-06 , how did you address your oil changes?

 

[2006SiennaLE]

Our original Sienna was an 06 LE. I followed the regular oil change intervals (5k miles?) for the first 3 years until I got an oil analysis done.
According to the oil analysis, it was ok for me to change the oil after 7.5k miles so that's what I did, using Mobil 1 synthetic oil.
The van ran really well for 12 years and 120k miles (I forget the exact number) until it got into a minor accident.
My previous car was a 99 Ford Contour that I sold after 14 years, 160k miles. I used to change the oil every 10k miles based on an oil analysis.
Short answer: You don't need to do the frequent oil changes during the 'break-in' period. There's no harm if you do (other than wasting a little oil) but it's not necessary.

 

[paul r]

There's no harm if you do (other than wasting a little oil) but it's not necessary.

Thank you.

 

[floridanative]

On my 07 I changed the oil at ~1200 miles with regular dino oil, then at 5000 and every 5000 since with Mobil 1. I am at around 158k and it doesn’t burn or leak a drop of oil between changes (knocks on wood).

-Mike

 

[BillG]

So, back in the day, they slathered break-in oil all over all the internal engine parts, assembled it, installed the engine in the vehicle and sent it on it's way. The break-in procedures were clearly detailed in the owners manuals which basically had to run the engine through a series of controlled operations (i.e. no higher than 2500 rpm, steady stair-stepped speed operations, etc.) which were basically impossible to do unless you had a dyno or took the risk of jacking up the drive wheels and put a brick on the pedal. They would typically have you change the oil at 500, 1000, and 5000 and then every 5000 miles after that. By the time we got into the late 90s when I bought my first (and only) brand new vehicle, manufacturing processes and tolerances were much better and the break-in process for my '97 Ford Ranger was just to keep the speed below 55 for the first 1000 miles and then change the oil. After that, the regular service interval was all that was required. With full synthetic oils in cars now, I don't think they even have break-in procedures in the manual anymore. Of course, I'll never know for certain unless I win the lottery and buy a new car. Actually, if I won the lottery, I would probably buy a bunch of old cars instead of one new one, so I guess I'll never know!

 

[floridanative]

FYI, my 2017 VW GTI did have a break in procedure (max rpm, vary your speed, don’t use full throttle) for the first (500? 1000? don’t remember) miles. It came from the factory with VW approved synthetic oil and that’s all I use in it. I still did my usual oil/filter change around 1200-1500 miles then went back to the factory schedule (10k miles and every 10k miles or annually after that).

-Mike

 

[paul r]

So, back in the day, they slathered break-in oil all over all the internal engine parts, assembled it, installed the engine in the vehicle and sent it on it's way. The break-in procedures were clearly detailed in the owners manuals which basically had to run the engine through a series of controlled operations (i.e. no higher than 2500 rpm, steady stair-stepped speed operations, etc.) which were basically impossible to do unless you had a dyno or took the risk of jacking up the drive wheels and put a brick on the pedal. They would typically have you change the oil at 500, 1000, and 5000 and then every 5000 miles after that. By the time we got into the late 90s when I bought my first (and only) brand new vehicle, manufacturing processes and tolerances were much better and the break-in process for my '97 Ford Ranger was just to keep the speed below 55 for the first 1000 miles and then change the oil. After that, the regular service interval was all that was required. With full synthetic oils in cars now, I don't think they even have break-in procedures in the manual anymore. Of course, I'll never know for certain unless I win the lottery and buy a new car. Actually, if I won the lottery, I would probably buy a bunch of old cars instead of one new one, so I guess I'll never know!

BillG , you are killing me ...lol

 

[PHW]

When I bought the 2004 FWD 17yr ago replaced the factory fill right away with M1. Ran at the book 7.5K change intervals until 120K when the major warranties expired. At that time ramped up the change intervals to 15K, monitored with oil testing. Currently at 256K, still running tight. May shorten interval again because of extended downtime but oil testing on other cars I have had grow weeds under showed no oil degradation.