[KevinM]

There is no universal consensus. There are three major opinions:

1. Those who ignore the break-in recs completely. In turn, people in this category can be divided into two camps: those who actually believe this type of break-in (e.g. high-revs/max speed ASAP) is either neutral or even beneficial to the long-term life of the engine, diff, etc.; and those who are planning a short-term ownership and really do not care about long-term ramifications of such a break-in.

2. Those who follow break-in directions provided by BMW. Thought process is that the engineers who designed the car know what is best for long-term longevity. The two camps here are those who are planning long-term ownership and those who are not but nonetheless wish to pass on an "unmolested" car to the next owner.

3. Those who don't care either way and just drive the car as the situation demands from the start.

Personally, I am in the #2 camp (usually, but not always with long-term ownership in mind). You could probably spend an entire day on this forum alone reading other opinions...