I just bought my 8 how much longer until I get to really enjoy the ride ? What do you guys recommend in terms of mileage and to properly break it in ?

The manual says 600 miles... went by in the blink of an eye.

thought you meant "Break In" as in someone jacking your car... ack.. scared me...


You can enjoy it immediately, but if you really want to go all out, perhaps after 1200 miles would be safe... some people peel it at 600-800 up to Rev 9... but I didn't start going nuts until 1200+ miles. Just remember to change your speed every so often, and not maintain a steady speed the first 600 miles or so. But don't rev it too high... just go easy till then.

I drove mine relatively easily for the first 600 or so miles as recommended by the manual (no clutch dumping, emergency stops from 100mph, etc.). A couple of jaunts up into the higher rpms but nothing too dramatic. After 600 or so I began to stretch the legs of the car a little more and now I really enjoy the upper RPM range quite a bit (this weekend I went on a run and quite a good deal of it was spent in 2nd gear at RPMs from 6000 to 9000). I have about 7400 miles on the car now and no problems to date (except the oil-light issue which got taken care of at around 4000 miles). I got the first oil change around 4000 miles and I expect I'll get my next one some time in the next 500 or so miles. I keep to the recommended 91 octane gas minimum also.

Some folks have quite the break in process and more power to them, however given there's no specific break in procedure recommended in the manual other than keeping it sane for 600 miles, my philosophy is: so long as you're not doing anything too crazy for the first 600 or so miles you should be doing pretty well.

Just my opinion, of course, and I fully expect there will be others recommending far more elaborate procedures than this - however so far this has worked for me, like I said - I've had no problems with the car.