Break-in metals

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For those of you who are knowledgeable about the UOA's, what is the real risk of "break in" metals in the oil during the first few 1000 miles of an engines life? I understand the concept, a brand new engine will break in and rings will seat, metals will shed, etc. My question is, how dangerous is it to have these break in metals in the oil during the first few intervals? Yes I know some advocate for an early oil change to get the metals out, others do not. opinions? Thanks.
 
Back in the day most auto manufacturers recommended changing the factory fill after the first 500 miles. This is no longer the case. You can safely follow the recommendations in your owner's manual and sleep easy.
 
This horse has been beaten to death, as you probably know. There are those who will say millions of car owners run a full OCI in new vehicles and have no problems. Others will say, get the break in metals out ASAP doing so is better for the engine. Take your pick, I want the junk out early.
 
I've bought two new cars in my life.

On my recent one, the Tundra, I had the dealer change it at six months (2,500 miles) under the short trip/severe service interval for a flex fuel.

Not exactly the early interval. Not exactly 10,000 miles, either.

The first UOA, done at 20,000 miles or so, looked great.

Lots of guys never do an early drain and fill and get over 200,000 miles on their engines. If you buy a used car from any ordinary person (not a crazy BITOGer, like me), then, for certain, it will not have had the early change done.

And it will be fine.

All my used cars have gone over 200,000 miles. I know that they didn't have the early change done.

If it makes you sleep better, do it.

But I wouldn't worry about it...
 
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I think one question is how well is the filter at capturing the wear metals & what is / are the particle size .

Do not have an answer for those questions . But if the filter was doing a bang up job , I would think it would be a non issue ? My guess is it is doing somewhat less .
 
Originally Posted by gfh77665
No worries, just general curiosity about what exactly, the wear metals might effect.

Trav, myself, and others I have high respect for that know a lot more than I do have discussed this a lot. If you think about it, those metals are impacting the same parts they'd be impacting at 20K miles, 30K miles, 100K miles. After all they are in the sump being pumped through the engine when it is running. Wear metals are wear metals. Does it impact or shorten the life of an engine? Maybe, maybe not, I'm from the camp that believes an early oil change is a good thing. I'm also older than most people here, and keep vehicles for a very long time. Most people wreck, get tired of, or junk vehicles long before the engine dies. Having said all of that, I think we're going to cycle back to the standard reply: Do what makes you sleep better.

One more thing to ponder, if a Bitoger saw UOA results from a vehicle with 50K miles on it that mirrored a UOA from the FF being dropped when the OLM indicated to change the oil, they'd freak out.
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Did a full 10,000 mile OCI on my brand new 6.0 liter GM. Eleven years later and 185,000 miles it still runs great and doesn't use oil. YRMV. I would expect that any particles generated large enough to damage the engine would be picked up by the oil filter.
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I changed it early on my 2018 Impala, and doing that made me feel good. On the other hand, our 2003 Buick with 300,000 kms didn't get it's first oil change until 12000 kms (I have the full service history from the dealer), and it runs great.
 
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
I think one question is how well is the filter at capturing the wear metals & what is / are the particle size .

That's a good question and is not answered here. The metals that show up on the analysis are not the ones doing damage, those would be either undetected, trapped in the filter or possibly trapped on a magnet if one is installed. A standard UOA cannot directly indicate the amount of damage causing particles in an oil sample.
 
Originally Posted by kschachn
. A standard UOA cannot directly indicate the amount of damage causing particles in an oil sample.


A standard UOA ....

FILTERS OUT ALL THE BIG PIECES!!

All those "bigger than 20 micron size boulders" never make it into the plasma stream
 
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