Just picked up our new 2016 F350 6.7. Currently sitting with 20 miles on the odometer. My question we will be hooking to a 15 K 5th wheel the end of the month for a trip. Should I put some break in miles on the truck without a load???

 

Read the owners manual, but I'm pretty sure they recommend 500 miles before towing.

 

The manual says 1000 miles. Or 500 miles. Read the Diesel Supplemental Guide.

 

Thanks...could recall the exact amount.

 

Yeah, I thought it was 500 miles..
The engine does not need a break-in period per se, but the gears in the differential do and that's most likely what they want you to do..
Mine had just at 500 miles on it when I hooked up to 18k and drug it home another 450 miles... Doesn't seem any worse for wear (no pun intended)

 

The reason I have hard time with either 500 or 1000 is because that both numbers have been used in the past....

 

Dang that's a lot of trips to the store. Better get it rolling tomorrow.

 

My manual said 500. I started towing my last hauler at about 560.

 

I usually consider the first 6,000 miles as break in, I'll still tow during that but I don't push it. After 6,000 miles I'll run it hard.

 

Okay - here it is from the Ford Factory Manual -

 

Sorta wonder why the manufacturers supply owners manuals. No one seems to read them.

 

There is a lot of information in manuals and it's tough to retain all the information. It is often difficult and time consuming to find the exact piece of information when you need it too. It's often faster to ask here and get opinions on what others have experienced. It happens to a lot of people and I know a lot of us are avid readers of our manuals AND WE STILL ASK, lol.

 

If the first third of it wasn't warnings and legal disclaimers, folks might be more inclined to dive in. Our ever litigious society strikes again...

 

What he said, not sure about you guys south but in Canada having everything repeated in French annoys me

 

While its true that break in has mostly gone the way of the dinosaur I still do it on some of the cars I buy.

Break in came from the days when tolerances in final assembly were all over the map, some lose, some tight, but rarely any in spec. With the advent of what was called "invisible horsepower", aka "blueprint and balance" the need to break in slowly diminished.

You can go down in the pits at the big money drag races and watch those boys completely rebuild an engine that just did a winning 1320 and they certainly don't do any break in.

I do believe that a break in can be valuable and if I am buying a car that runs big dyno numbers vs cu in I will seek out a dealer a couple of thousand miles away, order it, fly out and drive it back home.

I ordered up a Z06 Corvette and checked the box for factory/museum delivery and when they called I flew to Bowling Green Ky with my GF (now wife) and drove back to Miami where I was working at the time. I have my own procedure for breaking in and when the Odo hit 500 mi I pulled into a Shell and grabbed a tank high octane. As I was filling up I saw 2 Porches a few islands over and these two guys came over to looky loo on my Z06. I very little about Porches and these two guys both had one. They were a couple of Wall Street guys and one of them pointed the a black one belonging to the other guy and proceeded to tell me how how wicked fast it was some kind of top of the line machine. They asked where we were going and I said Miami, they were also going there for some kind of College thing. They left.

I finish my tank and head south. I bank right and hit the I-95 on ramp like Jean Claude Killy chasing Suze ChapStick down the slopes in Aspen. I turn my Valentine One to max bogie as I head down that highway and crank up Thrugood’s Bad To The Bone CD. It is not long and I come across the two German machines. I pull up alongside the 'bad boy'.

We are at 75 mph, I see the Porch nose dip slightly and and I know he is down shifting and is fixing to hammer it. I am grabbing for gears faster than a monkey reaching for a banana. I see the nose head up and he has the drop on me as I catch the top of second gear heading for 6500 rpm, he has me by a car length or so but its German Vs. Chev. Third gear gets here in a hurry, then it fourth, I left him behind in the top of third, but he is hanging on like a trapeze artist without a net.

Telephone poles are begining to look like a picket fence and the dashed line in the highway looks solid line when I look ahead and see a long sweeper curve up ahead. I have the inside lane heading into the sweeper and I am looking at him in my right hand side mirror. We are running about 135mph, I have been seeing him in that mirror since we hit triple numbers. I glance at my GF and her face is pale, eyes standing out on stems and knuckles are white as we go into the apex of the curve I see his Porch take nose-dive and slow and fade faster than memories of Kato Kaelin after the OJ trial.

That is how I broke in that car it ran incredibly strong and never saw a warranty fix.





Here I am (yellow shirt/red cap) picking up my Z06, this is the Dome in the Corvette Museum where the corvettes fell into a sink hole a few years back...wish I had never sold it!