New Taco break-in (7 Viewers)

[kcjaz]

I'm picking up my new 2025 Taco with 14 miles on the OD and will drive the 520 miles home. In the old days, people would say things like not go over some speed or engine rpm, don't drive long distances at constant speeds, try to avoid hard braking, drain the engine oil at 500 or 1000 miles. I asked my dealer and he said Toyota doesn't have any official break-in instructions. I googled and found this which is from another dealer and says a lot of what I wrote above. Seems like city driving would be best but unless I flatbed it to my house I have to drive the 520 miles, so practically speaking my plan would be to vary the speed between 60 and 75 and not floor it at stop lights. I'll want to change the engine oil at 1000 miles but I know the Toyota Care won't cover that (no big deal for me to do an early oil change to make me feel better).

Any recommendations on this topic?

 

[ppc]

Drive it like you stole it. No need to change oil until 3,000 miles.

 

[rexington14]

Curious why you purchased one that far away from home?

 

[kcjaz]

Curious why you purchased one that far away from home?

Local dealers didn’t have what I wanted and said it would be hard to get one from another dealership. I also don’t like the dealer that is close to me. Ordering a new build had some tariff uncertainty in pricing and timing. I also know Eric Sargent and he’s very willing to make mods to new vehicles which I wanted and the dealers here seem to just want to sell what they have.

 

[coldtaco]

I drove mine 2500mi home then changed the oil at around 3000mi.

 

[WildernessRimFab]

Any recommendations on this topic?

Take 2 lane highways where you can, be gentle on the throttle and engine load.

Toyota doesnt even recommend the 1st oil change until 10k.
I bought a new Tundra in 2023 and changed oil at ~2k, 6k, and 10k.

 

[pappy]

Local dealers didn’t have what I wanted and said it would be hard to get one from another dealership. I also don’t like the dealer that is close to me. Ordering a new build had some tariff uncertainty in pricing and timing. I also know Eric Sargent and he’s very willing to make mods to new vehicles which I wanted and the dealers here seem to just want to sell what they have.

I will echo this. I told all three sales managers, at my three local dealers, in an email, what I was looking for. There answer was to offer me only what they had on the lot, usually with poser crap I didn't want. I started looking out of state, and saw the dealer in Durango, CO had a truck in transit that was just about perfect. But, it was marked "sale pending." I told the dealer if the deal fell through I wanted that truck.

Long story short, he emailed me back in two hours with a spec sheet of exactly what I was looking for. It wasn't even built yet, but he found it in production. This was on Jan 8th. It came off the line Feb 1st. I took delivery March 23rd. In all fairness, there was another New Mexico dealer that must have seen the same truck. Unfortunately, they called me three days after I put the deposit down in Durango.

My local dealers were not interested in locating what I wanted. So I bought mine 220 miles away.

 

[Aloha Jen]

I'm picking up my new 2025 Taco with 14 miles on the OD and will drive the 520 miles home. In the old days, people would say things like not go over some speed or engine rpm, don't drive long distances at constant speeds, try to avoid hard braking, drain the engine oil at 500 or 1000 miles. I asked my dealer and he said Toyota doesn't have any official break-in instructions. I googled and found this which is from another dealer and says a lot of what I wrote above. Seems like city driving would be best but unless I flatbed it to my house I have to drive the 520 miles, so practically speaking my plan would be to vary the speed between 60 and 75 and not floor it at stop lights. I'll want to change the engine oil at 1000 miles but I know the Toyota Care won't cover that (no big deal for me to do an early oil change to make me feel better).

Any recommendations on this topic?

I wouldn’t stress about any of that, it’s a Tacoma. Toyota already does the engine break in at the factory, that’s why they don’t schedule the first oil change till 10k miles, and the next at 20k miles. Do you think they would offer there standard factory warranty on engines if all of that stuff you mentioned above needed to get done? I bet you could drive it 2000 miles home from the dealer and be just fine…it’s a Tacoma. Just drive and enjoy it.

 

[kcjaz]

Here’s an interesting video on the topic of engine break-in.



I just randomly found this with a Google search but it makes sense to me.

The question that the video doesn’t answer is so what if the wear metals in the oil are higher at 1000 miles than 10,000? Yes, there is evidence of wear in but does it matter if you don’t change the oil early?

My guess is, at least from a warranty cost exposure to Toyota, the answer is no. Regardless, I will change the oil at 1000 miles. Easy to do and it will give me peace of mind. Maybe I’ll take samples and have them analyzed just for fun.

 

[coldtaco]

A Toyota Master Tech on YouTube highly recommends changing oil every 5kmi if you care about your engine over the long haul. His claim to why Toyota engines in the past started using/burning oil is due to excessive long oil change intervals, oil starts going bad and causes piston rings to stick. This seems to match with what those who do oil analyses see with oil changes going longer than about 6K miles. He is The Car Care Nut. Lots of interesting videos on Toyota engines mainly.

 

[ppc]

Toyota already does the engine break in at the factory, that’s why they don’t schedule the first oil change till 10k miles

What evidence of this factory break-in procedure can you point to.

 

[Romer]

I drove mine carefully the 900 miles home. Not sticking to a set speed. I changed the oil at 1000 miles. Some say drive it like you stole it, but I don't see any proof of that so I was creaful fid=guring better safe.

Sorry for the late reply since you already drove it home

 

[kcjaz]

I drove mine carefully the 900 miles home. Not sticking to a set speed. I changed the oil at 1000 miles. Some say drive it like you stole it, but I don't see any proof of that so I was creaful fid=guring better safe.

Sorry for the late reply since you already drove it home

I essentially did the same but not as many miles home. Will change oil at 1000. My logic is, while maybe it’s not necessary, it also isn’t hard to do and can’t hurt.