I have 1800 miles. I have been shifting at 3500-4000 consistently. I never go under 2000 in any gear. DUring this time, I have accidentally gone 4400 maybe 4500 about 3 or 4 times, having gotten cut off nad having to acclerate and switch lanes, or gotten caught up in how amazing the car accelerates on the curves of highway entrance ramps. So here is my dumb question - Did I break in correctly so far, and did the over 4200 do anything????


Thanks - I am a newbie,
2004 C2
Seal Gray
black standard
turbo look II

 

Your car is perfectly fine. In fact many people have different methods of breaking in their car. Some people entirely ignore the break in period and "drive it like they would normally", others follow the procedure to the letter, whereas others drive the car like it was stolen.

You certainly did no damage whatsoever by going a few hundred RPM's over the "break in limit" a few times. Rest easy.

In fact you probably followed the guidelines that Porsche gives you in the manual better than 95% of the people out there.

 

Life is good, Joe, you are doing great, it's awefully tough to keep it under 5K rpm, isn't it Performance will only keep improving from this point on, you'll notice the engine/car starts to loosen up a bit around 4500 miles & "fully awake" at about 10K miles .
Drive her hard, 3/4 throttle but keep it under 5K & vary the RPM (no cruse control for the break-in peroid). Cheers!

 

You have ruined your car, but I will be willing to take it off your hands, how does $25,000 sound?



Seriously, I share your difficulty in keeping the car under the 4200 RPM max. I now have about 500 miles on my new C4S and after driving my last Porsche hard and fast, I find it hard to baby this one, but I am!

 

It is difficult, but I am almost there!!! So after 2000 miles, can I rip through the gears????

 

My 04 c4s cab has 2200 miles on it and i've pushed it hard - not all the time - but i have. This is my second porsche and I've never had a problem before breaking the car in hard. To me the most important thing is letting the car warm up. Even in the summer I let the car come to idle before taking it out, then I don't go over 4K RPM until the running temp hits 180 and you can feel the tranny loosen up.

In fact many people will tell you that how you break the car in is how it will perform - this was certainly true with my BMWs, and Porsche techs have told me the same thing.

Just drive sensibly, and enjoy!

 

I resolved this little conundrum by obeying the break in rules in the manual religiously, but got all 2000 miles done in the first two weeks.

 

I asked this question to the tech editor of a well known Porsche magazine and his answer surprised me. He recommended driving the car as I would normally drive it, which meant taking it over 4k rpm regularly. There are many anecdotal experiences so we are all going to have to decide how to proceed with our vehicles. One other question to ask is "do I change the oil after the break in period or after a certain number of miles or do I trust Porsche and change the oil after what seams to be a very high number of miles? How do you feel about Porsche changing the oil filter on every other oil change? It's like taking a shower and putting on dirty underwear.

 

I was told its not a good idea to let it sit and warm up , but instead to drive it gently until it reaches the 180 mark.

 

To clarify... let the car come to idle before moving, but then drive and not push the rpm to over 4k until the 180 mark and the tranny warms up.