Hey guys quick question for all the mechanics out there.

I'm picking up my 2013 500 abarth tomorrow and a buddy of mine told me about driving the car a certain way if it is a turbo charged engine.

He told me to drive the car at high rpms then low rpms to set the seals in the engine to get more years out of the engine and better performance overall.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks
Zeppelin

While not completely unfounded in his comments the days of "running in" your new engine is pretty much over.

The assembly tolerances and oil quality are so good that you can just get in a new car and drive it. There are considerations - like making sure the car is properly warmed up before going mad but this is true of well used engines too.

Keeping the revs low for the first 500 miles won't do any favours, there is some anecdotal evidence that this will actually harm the peak performance of the engine but finding any real data is hard.

Ultimately what you are aiming for is loosening the engine up and the best way to do this is just drive it normally as this puts the internals through the full range of subjective loading. Keep to the maintenance cycle (or better) and don't red-line it everywhere.

The warranty for the car does not state anywhere that you should go through a running-in process (unless it has changed since I got mine) but it does state that the car should not be raced or rallied which hints that if you do go mad the dealer can refuse to comply if they have reason to believe that breakages are down to misuse.

jimbro1000 said:

The warranty for the car does not state anywhere that you should go through a running-in process (unless it has changed since I got mine) but it does state that the car should not be raced or rallied which hints that if you do go mad the dealer can refuse to comply if they have reason to believe that breakages are down to misuse.

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Probably best not to bring it back looking like this then: