I thought modern thinking was to thrash it within the first few miles of its life (it probably has been by the delivery driver) to bed the rings in. I've seen and heard of several new cars that have become oil burners despite being carefully run-in by the first owner.

I was under the impression they had to be run in for 600 miles or so, ie no hard acceleration untill time up to bed the rings in, similar to Toyota due to rings not as tight to bore as they used to be for friction reasons

I thought modern thinking was to thrash it within the first few miles of its life (it probably has been by the delivery driver) to bed the rings in. I've seen and heard of several new cars that have become oil burners despite being carefully run-in by the first owner.

I would say it's not thrash it but mixed driving including giving it some beans every now and again. I first did this on a 1300 Astra new in 1989 - was always a surprisingly nippy car after that and no oil burning. Last new car I had was a 1.4 Octavia - again after the same treatment and in the 19 years of family ownership was not an oil burner except when it suffered a blocked engine breather valve for a month or so.

My Dad bought a 2001 2.0 auto Octavia at the same time as mine and I advised him to do the same - this 8v 2.0 engine has been a notorious oil burner inc in many HJ threads. His never needed topping up between services.