In general, being the first to do something is always best. You don’t want to be the second person to bite into an oyster, or visit a blocked toilet, or call the radio station hotline for free tickets to Justin Bieber (obviously, in this instance, it’s safer not to call at all).
But when it comes to being handed a $435,750 (plus on-road costs) 2018 McLaren 570S Spider with just 10km on the odometer, suddenly being first seems like one of those ideas that looked better when used in a sentence with words like “exclusive”, “important” and “access”.
On the one hand, I was blown away that the people at McLaren – a nerdy bunch of engineers cowed into frenetic perfectionism by the company’s former chief lunatic, Ron Dennis – are so confident in their bench-testing procedures, and their own genius, that even a car as seemingly high-strung as a McLaren needs no actual running-in at all.
Generally, someone at every car company gets the fun job of putting at least 1000 very careful and gentle kilometres on any car before it is carefully checked over and then handed to the nasty people of the media.
Partly, this is because journalists have a habit of mentioning things that go wrong with new cars, but largely it’s because they have the mechanical sympathy of three-year-old boys, and will often be unkind to borrowed machinery they probably should pay more respect to.
Thus, I was more blown away by the fact that the nice young man at McLaren was encouraging me to do the running-in for him, offering only this: “You don’t need to worry, just make sure it’s warm before you absolutely belt it.”
The temptation to plant the foot in something as viscerally fast as this 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8, with its top speed of 315km/h (or 328km/h with the very solid feeling two-piece roof in place) and a 0 to 100km/h sprint of 3.2 seconds, was too large for either of us to ignore.
What obviously worried me, of course, was this was a brand new car, with fewer kilometres on it than any of the hundreds of vehicles I’ve driven before. And did I mention it costs $435,750?
It seemed likely to me that if I reached the 7500rpm at which the engine’s maximum power of 419kW kicks in, or even the 5000rpm at which its 600Nm of torque would punch me between the shoulders, something just might go bang.
Fortunately, there’s a clever in-built feature that would stop any new user from such potential damage; it’s known as “fear”.
Putting your foot actually flat in a car as pointedly fast as this sharp and shiny looking new McLaren 570S Spider is something you want to build up to, because it really will scare you.
It took us a couple of hours to try a properly full-on launch, which promptly sent the rear-driven supercar squirrelling sideways as all that grunt quickly overcame the tyres.
Impressively, nothing went bang, or nothing outside my body, at least. There’s always a certain level of fear of embarrassment and shame when borrowing someone else’s supercar, but it really reached a new level for me, just because I couldn’t shake the thought that I’d be the one to hurt this car before anyone else – even anyone from McLaren – had driven it.
This Porsche-like level of confidence in the product’s abilities, out of the box, did get me thinking, however. Do new cars, even sporty ones, need gentle running-in these days? Or in other words, just how special is this McLaren?
Clearly, the average new car doesn’t need to be coddled; drive a new Hyundai out of the dealership and there’s no briefing about bedding in the brakes, or not revving beyond a certain level for the first couple of months.
Other supercars, however, are delivered with slightly more caution. Every Audi R8, we’re informed, is tested on a dynamometer and a test track prior to leaving the factory.
“However, during the first hours of use, the engine and transmission have a higher internal friction than later on when all moving parts have settled into place with each other,” Audi Australia spokeswoman Anna Burgdorf explains.
“We do recommend that a new vehicle is broken in, and the break-in period should be the first 2500km. It is advisable to drive the first 1000km without using full acceleration and without exceeding a maximum engine speed of 6000rpm. Full acceleration should also be avoided between 1000km and 2000km.
“From 2000km to 2500km, you are able to slowly and briefly increase the engine speed to 8250rpm. It’s advisable to drive at moderate engine speeds after the initial break-in period, particularly when running a cold engine. This will reduce engine wear and improve mileage.”
It’s safe to say that full acceleration was not avoided during out McLaren’s first 100km, let alone the first 2000.
Over at Ferrari, they’ve already done the work for you, according to their spokesperson:
“In pursuit of engineering perfection, all of our engines are bench tested and our cars are all tested on the roads around Maranello and on the Fiorano circuit for up to 500km before they are shipped. All cars that come to Australia have these test kilometres on them.”
It should come as no surprise, however, that Porsche – the masters of engineering reliability and the only cars you can happily use the launch control in repeatedly, all day, without fear – make no such demands.
“There’s nothing in the manual that says you need to drive it a certain way for the first 1000km or anything like that. We simply advise the use of discretion – don’t rev it in first gear right to the limiter as you leave the dealership, that kind of thing,” says Porsche Australia spokesman Paul Ellis.
There are some not-quite-supercars that also need running-in, however.
A Nissan Australia spokesperson outlined, in very broad terms, that its Nissan GT-R needs to cuddled for a while before being fully unleashed: “Take it easy fro the first 2000km when driving the GT-R. Keep revs under 3500, avoid rapid acceleration, steering and braking. And keep it in ‘Comfort’ mode.”
Then there are BMWs, all of which need to be dealt with carefully for the first 2000km.
Buy one of the good ones, like an M4, and the process is quite involved, and you are advised not to use launch control for that entire period.
M owners are advised to “Drive with alternating revolutions and speeds, but do not exceed 5500rpm and 170km/h… In principle, avoid full load or kick-down.”
And the boring part’s not over even then, because from 2000 to 5000km, you are advised to only gradually increase revolutions and vehicle speed (up to 220km/h).
The BMW manual further advises that your new tyres won’t have full road grip immediately and you should thus drive “moderately” on them for the first 300km (no, McLaren didn’t mention that, either).
It’s the same with the brakes, which “only achieve a favourable wear and contact pattern after approximately 500km”.
You guessed it, you should treat them with moderation as well. And if you’ve got M carbon ceramic brakes you can double that period of moderation to 1000km.
Frankly, buying a BMW M car second-hand starts to sound like a good idea, because I just don’t think I could handle the frustration at the start. Kind of kills the excitement of your new-car purchase, all that running-in and “moderation”.
Buy a McLaren, however, and you’re off to the racing straight away. Spiffing.
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