7.3 engine. How many miles on break in would you do before serious towing? Would you wait till after first oil change ( whatever that may be?)

 

Wouldn't worry about it. Hook it up and go.

 

I think I had about 200 miles. I don't believe it is an issue.
I doubt if any work trucks are not put to use immediately, whatever that use may be.

 

I wouldn't worry about the engine. They say to allow 1,000 miles though the consensus seems to be that this is for ring and pinion break-in. IMO, it depends on the tow; I towed a relatively light load on flat-ish ground at 50 miles......as mentioned, most work trucks work from day 1.


Dave

 

The owners manual says 1,000 miles before towing, for break-in.

You can get all kinds of opinions here on a forum, but that's worth every cent you paid for it.

I ran about 600 miles before my patience ran out and I hitched up. It is impossible to ever know if any long term harm was done.

 

You cant go wrong following the manufacturers recommendation. I have not followed it with any of the company trucks for more than the last 15 years and they all go 1/4 million miles or more before being retired for reasons outside of the powertrain. If there is a benefit to the break in, so far I haven't been able to keep a truck on the road long enough to find out if im shortchanging myself another 10,000 miles from not following Fords procedure?

 

There's definitely some noticeable engine break-in effects that happen though I have no idea on the effect of towing before that break-in.

My personal anecdote: When I bought my 2024 7.3L F250 in March with 6 miles on the odo I did my first long highway drive at around 100 miles and could definitely notice less internal resistance at the end of that ~200 mile journey compared to the beginning. It was minor but was there, I had repeated some same sections of road in the same direction and there was a bit more power in any given gear at the end. I did not tow my 7500lbs travel trailer until 1000 miles and did not notice any changes after that first tow. I did my first oil and filter change at 3000 miles to 5w-30 pennzoil full synthetic. I did not send my oil off to be analyzed but I did inspect the filter and could not see any glitter hiding in there. At present I have 6700 miles on the truck. I could be imagining it but I swear it's a bit more stout in every gear than it was with a couple thousand miles on it. I live in a very hilly area with common 800 ft climbs on windy bendy roads and what I have experienced is managing to hold, for example, 6th gear at 1000rpm where formerly the truck did 5th gear at 1200rpm, and other similar cases through same sections of road. It might not be engine alone responsible for this but there seems to be less resistance, more power, or both.

 

Towing early before 1000 miles just reduces the life of the R&P from about 1,000,000 miles to 750,000 miles. Not going to hurt a damned thing. The wear in period that Ford refers to break in, is actually the Learn in period. It takes roughly 1000 miles for all the electronics to learn all the parameters for your driving style. Towing before that period can mess up it's learning curve and can result is some funky shifting that eventually goes away, but thats about the extent of it. The wear in for the R&P is the most important thing on the truck. If put under too much stress right away it can result in a noisy differential. So those two items are really what Ford is wanting a 1000 mile period before putting the truck under its most loads. Will you ever see the results of not waiting? nope, just get in and drive.

 

Since Ford knows whether the truck is towing or not, when are they going to deny a warranty claim due to improper break-in? I drove over 1,100 miles home from Chicago to Denver, so I involuntarily complied.

 

I’ve always used 600-800 miles before towing on new trans and rear. Had a friend who hooked up his boat and headed to the bay from the mountains with a brand new 250, rear went at 1k, the dealer did cover it.

I waited 600 before loading with cord wood and pulling a trailer. Im in the hills, not real sure that would apply to a flat-lander with a small load.

 

I was able to drive about 1200 miles before we had a trip planned.

 

I have waited a while to pull, and I've brought the truck home and hitched up to pull something the day I bought it before. Haven't really noticed a difference between either method, but I don't generally keep a vehicle past 200k, just because by then I'm tired of it because I've had it 6 years or more.

In the old days it was an issue for most of the powertrain. Today most of that has been accounted for.

 

I pulled my kids Boy Scout troop trailer at about 600 miles but waited for my camper until I hit 1000 miles. Neither of these trailers is heavy so I'm not concerned at all but I would probably have waited if I was towing something very heavy (over 10k lbs)

 

Never going to happen.

Dave