NABS4

I've owned two cars with the 3.0T engine (S4 and Q5) and broke-in both cars differently. With the S4, I used Audi's gentle recommendation and my car proceeded to use oil at the rate of roughly 1L/10,000 km. With the Q5 I used the "modified Motoman" procedure, which entails, with a completely warmed engine, bringing the engine to redline (usually in 2nd gear), and allowing the car to slow using engine compression roughly back to idle. The Q5 used no oil.

Now the question: Follow Audi's recommendation for break-in, or use the same method as I did for the Q5? The owner's manual doesn't differentiate between gas and diesel as far as procedure is concerned.

DeerHunter

I used, essentially, the Motoman technique when breaking in my S6. I don't think the engine type matters, as the principle (using combustion pressure to seat the rings) remains the same.

NABS4

Thanks for the reply. I'm leaning towards the same conclusion.

Superfly_A6

I used this:
http://www.fiestast.org/forum/fiesta-st-discussions/277-engine-break-101-a.html

Pretty much the same as mentioned above without going to redline. My last oil change had 6,000 on the oil and zero oil burned

forza1976

Drive it like you stole it!

uberwgn

It's probably less critical today. The guys at the TDI website say:


and:

http://www.industrial-lasers.com/articles/print/volume-19/issue-10/features/targeting-diesel-engine-efficiency.html

AudioBear

I found the Motoman comments very credible and impressive but too much trouble given that a lot of how your engine sorts out has to do with the luck of the draw on how the parts they assigned to your build fit with one another. I followed the Audi instructions with my 2014 A6 TDI. It will be interesting to see how it does. Performance and fuel mileage are good and it used approx. a half a liter of oil in the first 5000 miles--I say approximately because I never looked at the oil level all that carefully until just before the first service. I am not engine expert but I have read many times that using zero oil is a bad thing for an engine because a microscopic film of oil is left between the rings and the cylinder walls which is burned off on each cycle. The actual amount burned is tiny but eventually accumulates to a little oil lost. If the rings are too tight and the film is too thin it enhances friction, heat, and wear. I have no idea if this is true but every engine I have owned has used a small amount of oil. I would say a a half liter per 10K miles would be about normal.

DeerHunter

Are you saying that breaking-in the engine using the described technique is too much trouble? If I misunderstand you, then ignore this post. If not, then really? Seriously? It took me less than two minutes each time I was out with a fully-warmed-up engine.

AudioBear

Yes and no. It depends on how literally you want to take the comment. First, you have to remember that you are breaking in a car. Sometimes I had other things on my mind--I confess I am not totally obsessed with my car break-in responsibilities. Then the people in the car have to understand what you are doing or they might think you are a bit nuts. Then my problem is that I drive on gravel roads down a 16% grade for the first few minutes. It ends up not always being convenient to follow Motoman break in instructions and I didn't always remember to do anything but follow the Audi RPM limit instructions. That said, the Motoman suggested sequence is the best and most logical I have ever read on how to break in an engine and I did incorporate some of it into the program but in all honesty I can only claim that I followed Audi's directions 100% tweaked a little by Motoman. If 3.0 TDIs perform any better than the one I have I don't want to even think about how good that must be. I will have to report back on oil usage in another 10-20K miles.

NoahWeb

Read your owners manual; it's covered in there.