I did not follow the break in to the letter on my STi. I did occasional WOT bursts to redline but in general kept the RPM below 4,000 as the manual stated. At around 800miles I had a nice mechanic at Big-O Tires decide to test drive my car after an alignment, bounce it off of the rev limiter and hit over 100mph when the car was cold. Once I hit 1,000 miles I changed the oil and let it rip.

Oil changes were done at around 500, 1000, 1500, 2,500, 5,000 and at 8,000 I switched to synthetic. I have around 9,500 miles on the car now and have not burned much oil. I was less than 1/4 quart low at the 8,000 mile oil change.

My 2002 WRX was purchased with a little over 100 miles on it, the story I was told was that it was a dealer transfer but I now think it was the test drive *****. I broke it in similar to the way I broke in the STi (other than the Big-O incident) and it burned oil from day one. It started out burning about a quart between oil changes and by the time I got rid of it at 53k miles it was burning over a quart per thousand miles.

I still get emails from Autowest in Roseville telling me that it is due for service. They come to my email address with the name of the new owner, I feel sorry for that broad...