Modern Vespa

Greeting fellow Vespisti,

I had just bought the LX 125 i-Get and I read the manual book. There said prior to first 1000 km, do not use full throttle and suggested to throttle it maks 80%.

Any one knows why is that? I have ridden many scooters in my past days, mainly Japanese scooter, and I often use full throttle in my daily commute. So sometimes I find it frustrating when I limited like that.

Please somebody explain to me, I'm so curious.
Thanks

Every manufacture says the same thing. The engine needs to break in and hard throttle causes excessive wear on the bearing and rings.

And if you have to do full throttle daily, you need a bigger CC scooter.

I've just read the FAQ, and there are two school of thought, it says. Some people just ride the bike like they steal it, I may be tempted to do so. But reading that passage in manual book, make me don't have heart to do full throttle.

And about bigger CC, my budget not that big actually, I rather just wake up earlier every morning then lol.

Show me how many of the, "ride it like you stole it" logic guys that have their vehicles at 100,000 miles.

The ride it like you stole it school of thought is generally not considered the best way to do it or at least not what I would recommend unless you have a lot of mechanical experience. For a racing bike I can see it but not a 150 cc scooter.

I agree if you are WOT often then a bigger scoot makes great sense. But yes of course budget and insurance etc plays in to that. Even on my 300 I never go WOT except on acceleration. Staying WOT would put me WAY over the speed limit on any road in NA.

There is a good video covering debunking this one:

https://youtu.be/xpoglovyy_8

Thank you for the very nice and informative video.

"I wasn't lookin' at his neck, man..."

lol I don't mean ride it recklessly, though here in Jakarta, the road is quite lawless especially for bike riders. You can easily reach 100 kph without having police on your tail. Or for some sport, you can have a "friendly" race with other riders, if you know what I mean.

WOT on the GTS is a bit crazy I think. Going fast with that fat heavy ass, but still I really want to try that one day.

Finally! That video really quench my thirst. So there is no significant differences between the two school of thought. What an eye opener.

After watching that, I finally get some peace of mind. You know, while riding I constantly think hard to not WOT and constantly varying the RPM. At least now I can just enjoy my ride every day, WOT or not.

Thank you very much!

Modern oil probably has a lot to do with the ability to run new engines full throttle without damaging them. Possibly modern machining methods also provide better manufactured surfaces, so 'break in wear' is less a factor.

I suspect Ari had a point in saying that highly-stressed engines need to be broken in more gently than tractor engines. More radical cam profiles, higher valve-spring pressures, much higher heat generation capability all suggest a need for some time to 'wear in'.

Best practice when rebuilding a car engine is to make sure that cam followers, of whatever sort, mate to the same cam lobe when re-assembling the engine. Usually want to put the same main bearing caps back on the block wehre they came from, pistons back in the same holes, etc. Obviously there are wear/fit issues.

Measuring wear with a micrometer probably doesn't tell the story. Like to see some photomicrographs of appropriate wear surfaces, and possibly some depth analysis. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see some 'work hardening' going on on some of the parts, that may be affected by load.

Like so many things in life, we all get choices. I choose to break in new machinery gently. As someone mentioned, be interesting to look at the differences, if any, at 50,000 and 100,000 miles.

My philosophy is vary speed during break-in in. That includes high speeds.

Our Sports City died with 87,000 mikes on it due to the Harvey flooding not because of engine issues.

Obviously nothing happens the moment the bike goes 1000km that suddenly makes it okay to go as fast as you possibly can.
I have heard that time is more important than distance when it comes to breaking in an engine. Personally I think that five hours of inner city traffic is a good way to break in a bike. And if you like to see how fast things go, it's probably a good idea to let someone who doesn't care ride the bike for those first five formative hours.

This too comes to my mind, about the time the engine runs. The odometer only showing the distance traveled, not counting how long the engine runs. I use my bike daily, and often stuck in the traffic. While I'm not moving, the engine runs. Well the engine runs in idle RPM, but still, it runs.
Let's see how things go in this first month of the bike, and most importantly, after the first service.

I think the idea is, by the time you hit 1000 km, everything that needs to wear in, will wear in. Very possibly it might 'break in' in the first 300 or 400 km. But it will be as good as it gets by 1000km.

Supposedly the best way to seat piston rings is to put a pretty heavy load on the engine for a short time, then coast down, so manifold vacuum pulls oil up on the cylinder walls. Then repeat. Since most of the excess heat on the piston is transmitted to the cylinder walls by the rings, probably good to get them happy with the cylinder walls before generating the max heat load by running the engine at WOT for extended periods.

There have been reports on cars that improper break-in, either too gentle or too hard, will affect ring sealing and oil consumption. Don't know to what extent that might apply to small engines, though.

I bought a new Ram Air Pontiac GTO in 1969. I babied it for the first 1000 miles or so. The rings never seemed to seat well. Then it got stolen.

I worked at the GM Proving Ground then and bought an ex test car, another 1969 GTO. It was used by the Rochester Products group which had a garage at the base of an 18% grade. Every time it left their garage it was run wide open up that grade.

That was the best running car I ever had. Wish I still had it

Just another data point.


fried okra

If there is a dynamometer at the end of production line that's where the most important break-in was made. After that you may very well give it throttle. Maybe not full throttle all the time but some pressure for piston rings.

I would like to see how badly piston rings leak in those engine which was used too gently during break-in period.

The major issue seems to be oil consumption. Certain German cars are reputed to be susceptible to this, with manfacturers claiming that oil consumption of a quart every 500 miles is acceptable. By contrast, my Japanese cars use less than a quart beween oil changes, usually 3000-4000 miles.

Very possibly those engines also tend to seal against blowby less well, too. But that is harder to guantify.

There's typically a known, and sometimes even acknowledged by the manufacturer, design problem behind the huge oil consumption of cars. In addition to those certain German cars, there is the other German manufacturer with some issues in the past too in this area, as well as one of the Japanese ones (not the big one).

Interestingly, e.g. in the best known case, where certain German petrol engines had issues when the oil channels of the piston rings got blocked, it almost seems like the engine designers newer new that these engines would be given a "long life" service interval..... as the design is very sensitive to the oil quality and long oil change intervals do not help here.