When should I do my first oil change on a new engine?

This is sort of a continuation of the last entry, where I talked about breaking in a new engine. A lot of people wonder about when they should do the first oil change on a new engine. IMO, if the engine is a rebuild done by a mechanic, you should do a few more oil changes in the first little while compared to a new factory assembled engine (such as with either a new car or if you've bought a fresh crate motor). With a rebuild done by a mechanic, there is a higher chance that things aren't as "clean" so you'll want to do the first oil change after maybe 100 miles, then maybe another one at 500 miles. If the engine requires synthetics, you can use conventional just for these first couple of changes if you want to save some money, then switch over to synthetic around 3000 miles. With a factory built engine, I think that things are built a lot cleaner these days, so you can safely leave the first oil change to anywhere between 3000 to 5000 miles. There will be a bit more wear metals in the oil at first due to the rapidly breaking in engine, but it shouldn't be anywhere near the danger zone. Make sure to read your owner's manual, because some car makers like VW want people to leave that initial factory fill of oil in there longer, because it contains special break in additives (or a special oil that is high in an additive called moly) Of course there will always be people that want to change the oil in their brand new cars after it's hit the 500 mile mark, I guess old habits die hard, but it's really not necessary anymore.