Earl,

I don't think it is a reasonable advise to say that Break-In is not an "ol' break-in idea". No matter what dealer salesmen say, you should not buy into it. As an engineer, all products with moving parts needs break-in. Specially in newer tight engines, there is a very high tech inter-action of alloys which all have different temperature expansion factors, given that these are designed to work optimumly at certain specified temperatures and tolerances. All of this needs to settle down, no matter who says what. Even the breaks...

If not, then you hear a lot of premature horror stories, and other things like premature valve tapping (even when self adjusting), break squeaks, not uniform wear, etc... Then we all say, "what a piece of S### this car is!!!"

I tend to buy good cars (Audi, BMW, MB and Volvo, to me these are the best quality cars), and take very good care of them and normally I use them for 10-12 years with no significant problems. I buy them new so that I take good care of them from day 1.

I may get a lemon, but haven't seen it so far.

My $.02

Rene

Extreme example: My neighbor purchased a brand new BMW 325 a year ago. She starts up the engine in the mornings, and 6 seconds later she is rushing the car out of the community, not to mention completly ignoring all other basic rules of break-in. The car has severe valve tapping at less than 10K miles. As a matter of fact, this is supposed to be one of the best and smooth engines ever built. Wonder why???