I'm expecting to receive my TCH sometime next week, and I was curious as to what you have done to "break in" your TCH. And for how long? Do cars of today, in particular TCH, need to go through a "breaking in" period?

 

I asked the Toyota folks that same question when we picked up our car last week. He said, No, because of the exceptionally tight tolerances these days, most new cars (he means Toyotas, no doubt) don't need a tedious break-in period.

Of course, that's pretty much the answer you'd expect from a salesman. We're still taking it a bit easy. A related thing he said did resonate for me: that your FE on the gas engine will improve somewhat over time when everything settles in.

 

Absolutely, the first 500 miles are the most critical no more 60-70mph... for overall I would say take it really easy for the first 1000-1500 miles and you will be the winner of your car... afterall the owners' manual states that also.

 

Drive it "Like You Stole It" Always do that and along with top notch oil, run them way beyond TBO.

 

My salesman told me the following (paraphrased): don't gun it, don't slam on brakes (obviously if it's an emergency you'd need to) and don't spend too much time at one speed. I think that was for the first 1000 miles. Made sense to me, not that I ever pay any attention to sales people. The first two are good to follow all the time to maximize fuel efficiency. The third...well, I tried to follow that just in case. In Houston traffic it's rarely possible to spend much time at one speed anyway, other than a crawl.

I'm closing in on 5000 miles with zero problems... Come back and give us a report after you get your TCH. You're going to love it!

 

I only have one question about "don't stay at one speed". With most cars you can vary the engine speed by changing the vehicle speed. With the TCH's ECVT the computer determines the engine speed. You can accelerate while maintaining your engine speed. So I'm not sure I would worry too much about varying the car's speed.

 

orcrone: Good point, the TCH is a completely different animal.

 

Just the same way as the automatic transmission picks the right gear for given power demand/speed, TCH will also try to do the same thing inside transaxle, so driving TCH on level road, at constant speed will keep engine RPM pretty much constant. Of course in real life there are no perfectly flat roads, also due to traffic it would be difficult to keep constant speed for longer intervals, so just driving as usual in your typical US traffic will most likely be good enough.

 

But with a conventional transmission, if you remain in the same gear a change in speed will provide a proportional change in engine speed. I'm guessing that a 5 or 10 mph change in speed may not change the engine speed at all. In fact I'd guess that a change in the SOC would have a greater effect.

Bottom line - you're right. Your normal everyday driving is probably fine. I hope so, that's what I did.

 

One of the first things my roommate, someone who clearly knows more about the mechanics of a car, asked me was when I was going to break the car in. I of course had no idea what that meante. When he explained it was gasing the car like crazy, the first thing I thought to myself was "Heck No!". I never ended up doing it and the car runs just fine!