Any reason not to road trip 3 days after delivery?

1743 Views 9 Replies 9 Participants Last post by FORDSVTPARTS, Sep 11, 2013

MGORDON

Discussion Starter · Sep 10, 2013

My ST should be coming in - fingers crossed - in the next couple of days. Coincidentally, I have a flight booked to Vegas on Tuesday... Meaning that my new car will be parked on the street for 4 days immediately after delivery.

The voice in my head is telling me to consider cancelling my flight and christening the car with a road trip from San Francisco to Vegas - about 8hrs of driving. Any reason not to road trip a brand new car?

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kvetcha

· #2 · Sep 10, 2013

As long as you're respecting the break-in procedures, I can't think of one.

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wash

· #3 · Sep 10, 2013

If you are like me, and have 600+ miles on it by day 6, or in your case 300+ by day 3, its probably fine. They say to avoid prolonged running at one speed during break in so maybe try running in 6'th for 1/2 an hour every hour, 5'th for 25 minutes and 4'th for 5 minutes to mix it up when you're at less than 1,000 miles.

I'm a fan of doing the first oil change quickly, at 600, I'm due. That gets the break in lube out and the filter should have already picked up everything its going to get from a new engine. At 300, that might be a little early for a change.

I have bought a longer filter to try out. It will slightly increase my oil capacity, possibly reduce the pressure across the media because of the increased area and also pick up more contaminants before it bypasses. Hopefully I can try that for fit tonight.

I'm going to do an LA area road trip soon so a similar situation, just a little more mileage on mine.

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Sil3nt611

· #4 · Sep 10, 2013

If I were you I would rather take my brand new car on a road trip than leave it sitting on a street. I myself would rather take my 11 year old car on a road trip that leave it sitting on a street, or for that matter, I'd rather take a road trip than take a plane and I would have a hard time leaving my car parked in the street overnight, much less several days I see no reason not to.

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speedprotege

· #5 · Sep 10, 2013

Drive it, I will be going on vacation as soon as my car gets in I'll be putting 3,000+ miles on it in a week or two.

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Mayhem

· #6 · Sep 10, 2013 (Edited)

Yeah, switching up the speeds/gears a lot would be my only concern for the break-in since it's still in the learning curve at that point. Easily remedied by being mindful of your habits, and in addition to what was mentioned above... just mixing your drive up with a little city time rather than all out highway.

That and maybe.... at least be prepared for the worst case scenario of getting rock chips along the way... It seems new cars come with a rock magnet or something. Don't tail gate or ride the barrier lanes

At least the car is Manual... I know a lot of the early production Raptors had to be brought in to have the computer reset & updated because of really rough shifting.. Transmission was pretty awful.. After the update it was much better though. Glad to be back in a Manual though... I can't stand how an auto shifts... since most new vehicles tend to aim for fuel efficiency vs fun.

Not as familiar with some brands automatics as with Fords... But the last 4 Auto fords I've driven much were frustrating.

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FORDSVTPARTS

· #7 · Sep 10, 2013

What does the owners manual say about break in procedures? I wouldn't hesitate to drive it anywhere for any distance.

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Soundman22

· #8 · Sep 10, 2013

I say drive it! Maybe someone can back me up on this, but from what I understand all engines that get installed in a car get run on a dyno to make sure they are to the spec that the manufacturer has set before they get installed in the car. So during that time, most of the break-in is already done. We have over 7,000 miles on our ST and as far as I know it has never had an oil change. I think around 10,000 is when we need to have that done. When we first picked up the car we were doing drag races and putting on the track. I will say that the brakes needed to be bead-in and the tires will be new, so take it a little easy for all the oils to get out of the tires. I also want to note that when we picked up the cars, they had already been driven to test before we got them. They had anywhere from 200 miles to 800 miles on them we got to them.

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RodMoe

· #9 · Sep 10, 2013

What the Soundman said !!!

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FORDSVTPARTS

· #10 · Sep 11, 2013

The only part of Soundmans post that I'd disagree with is the lack of an oil change, I tend to be old school when it comes to oil changes especially on a brand new engine.

Personally I'd do an initial oil change at no more than 3000 miles and then move on to whatever schedule you decide to use after that.

-Steve

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