Interstate travel OK with brand new car?

[pertuan]

I'm about to purchase a brand new Focus. I need to travel interstate (about 900km) literally the week after I pick up the car.

This would be within the "running in" period. Is it safe to run the car for a whole day going 80-100km/h? Or should I be avoiding travel like this in the car until its clocked up at least 1000km?

[Lagom]

You can do it, no problem.

One thing to be careful with is constant revs - try to vary your speed a little here and there on a long drive, as it's bad for the run in process to have the engine running at a constant speed for an extended period of time.

[pertuan]

So if I pull into a town and drive around there for about 15 mins after every hour 1.5hr of freeway time, it should be alright then?

[mitch_lx]

firstly, congrats on the car, when you actually get it!

what i would suggest is on the highway do as lagom says and vary your engine speed.
if ur better half isnt in the car with you then on the freeway maybe slow to 90, kick it back to 4th and get back up to speed. sorta vary the rpm a bit, but dont go redlining it!
pulling into town would be a good idea every couple hours and give it a bit of a squirt here and there, maybe upto around 4thousand rpm

[vztrt]

I pretty much had to run my XR in the same way you did. I followed the manual and didn't travel over 100km/h. As long as you do a bit of stop/starting (or town driving as you said) the car will be fine.
I haven't had trouble with the motor and it has never used a drop of oil in all 20,000km it's travelall.

[Lagom]

Here's a good page on running in.

It might go against the common wisdom of "babying it" when a car is new, but there's merit to what it says.

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

When my car was new, I'd basically run it up and down hills (eg. use lower gears for engine braking downhill). Wouldn't thrash it, but just give it some exercise. Engine doesn't use oil, it's going nicely years later.

An important thing is to not rev the car recklessly when the engine is cold - revs aren't bad, just don't do it on a cold engine. It takes around 10-15 minutes, depending on ambient temperatures to get an engine fully warmed up (engine oil takes longer to warm up than coolant).

[outback_ute]

Try to do as much driving as you can before you leave, if you can make some time to spend specifically on running in, eg loading up hills (note not lugging etc) that would be better.

On the long highway trip, I would say just vary the speed slightly, consistently. The advice against holding a speed too long relates to the rings wearing a slight step in the bore (the height the rings travel varies slightly with rpm), so if it is an auto, activate the torque converter unlock, or change down in a manual to avoid this.

[zetec]

If you avoid the cruise control it will help you vary the revs a little more. Otheriwse I'm with everyone above!! Good Luck!