Mike,
My last rebuilt wasserboxer engine didn't reach its optimum oil use
and peak fuel efficiency until it had 40,000 miles on it.
That's when the oil use finally leveled out at about 1/4 quart for 3,000 miles.
I used the more expensive Mahle piston/cylinder set.
It was a top-end rebuilt only.
The way VW used to break in engines, don't know if they still do today,
was to put them on a test-stand, then run them at full-throttle for 5 minutes.
If they were still running after, they would be shipped out. The rest would
be junked.
Some engines never truly break-in, because they are just too pampered.
One thousand and one oil changes and very slow driving doesn't "wear-in"
engines.
You can try to take your vanagon out for a spin at "high vanagon speed".
Drive it at full-throttle for 10 minutes, then slow down, then
15 minutes full-throttle, the way they drive on the autobahn.
Bring it up to 85 miles per hour sometimes (of course, only for research
purposes) and see if that helps with lowering oil consumption.
Disclaimer: I didn't say you should do this on public roads.
Harald
'90 westy

 Mike Miller <mwmiller@cwnet.com> wrote:This is the first mention I've ever heard of an engine taking 30,000 miles
to break in. Except for chrome rings which I don't believe are used much
any more, I thought break-in was as complete as it was going to get at 8-10k
in the worst case.

The reason this is of interest to me is my new engine has 18k miles on it
and still uses a quart of oil every 8-900 miles. An amount I consider as
evidence that something didn't seat.

After usual gentle break-in I'm down to trying 40 wt non detergent per the
rebuilders suggestion. Any other ideas?

Mike

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