Car servicing intervals

[Del Lardo]

I hope you guys can help me out with an argument I'm having with one of my friends.

Over in the UK (and most of Europe from what I've heard) the service interval on a modern car is around the 12000 mile mark though it can be as low at 6000 miles and as high as 20000 miles.

According to my friend, who has lived in the US but has also been known to talk nonsense, in the US service intervals on cars are only around 3000 miles. Is this the case and if so does anyone know why they are so much more frequent?

[ivymike1031]

They're so frequent because people are used to being told, by people who get paid to change oil, that it needs to be done that often. There are plenty of people in this forum who would insist that there is no reason to keep the oil in the engine any longer than a month. Some manufacturers seem to make engines that consume a quart or more every two months (especially Detroit autos from 15 years ago, but even some current models seem close), so telling people to change the oil every 3000mi was probably a good way to make sure they didn't run dry between changes...

Most OEMs currently recommend ~5000mi for "severe service" and 7000mi to 9000mi for "normal" driving conditions. The manufacturer's recommended oil change interval on my current car (Mini Cooper) is 15,000mi, based on my driving habits. In a year (approx) I'll know whether that was too long, when I get an oil analysis done prior to the oil service. My very first oil service (new car from factory), was done at 10,000mi; analysis showed no abnormal wear, and no significant degradation of the oil.

[MioCLK]

3,000 miles between oil change is commonly known here in the U.S.
Like when you take you car into those oil change shop, they'll put a sticker on your windshied saying "next service, orginal miles + 3,000 or 3 months after)
But of course thats for the old cars, or if the car is driven in a polluted environment.
Modern cars usually requires an oil change every 7,500miles to 12,000miles, depending on the vehicle and driving conditions.
As for my 2001 CLK, it only requires an oil change every 10,000 - 12,000 miles or 1 year, whichever comes first.

[MustangRoadRacer]

I change my oil as often as financially possible.
usually every 2k miles.
It cannot possibly hurt your engine to change it more often, and a clean engine makes more power and runs longer.
Add to that the fact that engine oil is one of the easiest ways to diagnose a serious problem, and you'll find that by changing it more often, you can find and fix serious problems early on.
The easiest way to do that is to cut open your oil filter and take a look. Examining spark plugs is good too. When checking your oil/ oil filet, if you see metallic flakes or particles, that is a sign that something is wrong. little pieces of metal floating around in your engine is no good, and will seriously damage it.
also, you can look for collant in the oil which will let you know that you have a gasket problem.

[ivymike1031]

Originally Posted by MustangRoadRacer

I change my oil as often as financially possible.
usually every 2k miles.

do you have any other really silly habits that you'd care to share with us? how often do you change your fuel filter? coolant? trans fluid? air filter? spark plugs?

[MustangRoadRacer]

I also keep my car clean, check the Air pressure everytime I fill up, and wash my car weekly.
I change my gear oil, coolant, and spark plugs every year unless needed before that.

[ivymike1031]

Originally Posted by MustangRoadRacer

I also keep my car clean, check the Air pressure everytime I fill up, and wash my car weekly.
I change my gear oil, coolant, and spark plugs every year unless needed before that.

What I'm wondering now is why you are hell bent on throwing away perfectly good fluids and parts... a typical gear oil change interval is in the neighborhood of 90,000 miles! Platinum plugs should last 50,000 miles! Is there something wrong with your car that makes it eat fluids and plugs so quickly?

[SaabJohan]

It's also very expensive to change fluids/spark plugs more often than needed, especially with high quality synthetic oils and platinum/iridium plugs.

With modern cars it's usually not necessary to service them more often than 20,000 km or once a year. If the car is driven for very short trips the oil can be changed within 6 months instead (water in the oil).

Many new cars have no intervals for gear oil changes at all, only oil level should be checked and adjusted if necessary.

To wash the car often is however a good way to keep the rust away, especially if salt is used on the roads where the car runs.

Low air pressure in the tires result quite a lot crashes per year. The common reason is however that many people don't know what pressure they should use.

[MustangRoadRacer]

I do the work myself, and get a pretty good deal on the fluids, so it isn't much of a concern.
Better safe then sorry in my opinion.
My car doesn't "eat" fluids, but nothing perfroms as well as new fluids.
I got into the habit of exacting maintenence while working on airplanes. Like I said, at the very worst I spend a hundred or so more dollars than needed per year. If it keeps me off the side of the road, and out of the "help me! my car is doing blah blah" forums, then I say it's worth it.