Technical A question of Service

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Technical A question of Service

BobbyDarko

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So my new car has been serviced and the interval says 18000 miles !!! is this right ? it seems alot of miles between services for such a little car?

What are you thoughts

Thank you

Bobby
 
My old 500 TA was 18,000 miles. I guess it all depends what you use your car for. If it's short runs and a lot of town city stop start driving then they advise you to have it serviced more regularly than, say if you did a lot of motorway driving.

I've just bought a new Twin Air Lounge and I was chatting to one of the technitions when I took delivery and he told me that the fully synthetic oil used in fiats twin air can 'regenerate' itself. How true that is I'm not sure, I'm a trained marine engineer and Synthetic oils do outperform mineral oil in both cleaning, cooling and lubricating. As for air filters and oil filters etc., again it would really depend on driving circumstances.
I'm getting mine serviced every 9,000 miles or every year. I'd rather pay the extra odd £100 to help protect my 'investment'.
 
So my new car has been serviced and the interval says 18000 miles !!! is this right ? it seems alot of miles between services for such a little car?

What are you thoughts

Thank you

Bobby

That's because it is. IIRC the service interval was reduced to 9000 miles on the later cars.

Whatever, changing the oil & filter every 9k won't cost a lot and would be excellent insurance against the possibility of an expensive repair, particularly one that's going to be coming out of your own pocket.

...and he told me that the fully synthetic oil used in fiats twin air can 'regenerate' itself. How true that is I'm not sure...

Sounds to me like total bo*****s. If you change the oil at 18k instead of at 9k, you will, on average, be running on oil that is four times as contaminated and degraded. On a turbocharged car, this seems like a risk well not worth taking.

If you are running on OEM copper core spark plugs, these should be changed at 9k also. If you fit Iridium replacements (less than £30 a set), you can safely leave them for at least 36k.
 
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If anyone wants their(any) car to last, then the oil requires changing every year regardless, no matter what the garage says, £30 to do it yourself or £70 or so is not a lot to pay, of course if you're only keeping it a few years who cares? well I do, so its every year( I used to change it every 6 months )

The Castrol website states every year regardless, even with their "Edge" brand oil.
 
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And I'll throw my two penneth in on this as well. 18k service intervals are a complete joke, there to appease fleet buyers who only keep vehicles for a couple of years.

I change the oil and filter in my Fiat engined Saab 9-3 1.9, every 5000 miles without fail. I fitted a Fumoto quickvalve to the sump, so once I've got the car up on the ramps, it takes me just 30 minutes to do a complete oil/filter change and costs me just £25 using genuine fully synthetic GM Dexos 2 oil and Mann Hummel filter.

Cars that do low annual mileages of less than 6k miles, should really have an oil/filter change annually anyway, especially as already mentioned, just doing short town trips.

This sort of service regime isn't rocket science and will help hugely in staving off problems in the future. Turbo chargers often fail due to a poor oil change routine. I'm sorry, but I don't believe the hype that modern synthetic oils are good for 20k miles, to me, that is absolute tosh.
 
If anyone wants their(any) car to last, then the oil requires changing every year regardless, no matter what the garage says, £30 to do it yourself or £70 or so is not a lot to pay, of course if you're only keeping it a few years who cares? well I do, so its every year( I used to change it every 6 months )

Why? What magically happens after 365 days? Modern oils do not suffer oxidation and other deteriation just sitting the way older ones did. Mileage and short trips will have an effect, and require change, but not just sitting. Changing oil too soon is wasteful of money and resources. The Americans are terrible at this, with chains that do nothing but oil changes and push for 5000 miles or less. This is purely commercial. California has had campains to persuade car owners to use longer change intervals. A Ford Focus in the USA has a 8000 mile interval while a UK one is twice that for the same engine.

Robert G8RPI.
 
To be fair I do nearly all my milage on the motorway and cover about 10k to 12k a year so i plan to service my car every year regardless of the service metre, so it will be serviced long before the 18k but not quiet 9k.

All that said its a lovely car to drive :)

Bobby
 
Bearing in mind I do actually know folk who leave their oil for two or three years between changes and admittedly at fairly high mileages, but I just couldn't resist posting this for those folk who have absolutely no idea what can happen when oil changes aren't carried out. Modern synthetic oil or no, this can happen to any neglected engine:

 
Why? What magically happens after 365 days? .. Changing oil too soon is wasteful of money and resources.

I tested UFI's oil at 12months but only 2k miles, this car usually only does long trips in the 60-100 mile range, so pretty much ideal operating conditions. The result came back as a 1 out of 10 - as new. The warranties up so no need for pointless servicing.

The six month old oil (about 3k miles on it) in the Prius scored 6 or 7, this car does all our short trips and of course the engine is always on/off. 12 months seems like it will be a stretch for this car, and 9 months/5k miles seems about right). This car has dealer oil in it so it could be any thing (most likely semi-synth).

With multiple cars in my garage, changing oil sooner than necessary can get expensive quickly.
 
For me a good indicator is how quickly my car loses oil. After about 12 k or so the oil degrades and has a 'higher consumption'. Time to change it then! I've noticed that my C3 Aral Oil really doesn't consume too much.
 
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If you change the oil at 18k instead of at 9k, you will, on average, be running on oil that is four times as contaminated and degraded.

Agreed with everything you and others said about 18k miles being very long and done to appease the fleet/rental market.

However, I don't understand this bit- is oil degradation/contamination not linear (i.e. at 18k twice as degraded as at 9k)?
 
At least you can check your oil. Not possible on my Renault Twingo! Under security screws under the boot - no access... I've been to the dealership to ask them to check at 2K miles and they did (free of charge) but I still prefer to have a look myself.... I need to buy some security screwdrivers methinks! It was so much easier on my old Fiat....;)
 
I'm not arguing about extended service periods (they are there to make cars appear cheap to run over the first 4yrs).

Having said that on one of the other forums I hand around there has been some interesting research.
New(ish) engines do run very clean, combined with modern synthetic oil means that even 18k appears conservative. Engine oil can still be within spec. at 36k.
There are lab's which offer oil analysis, someone did this and it confirmed his oil was in really good condition at 18k miles.

Now I'm really not convinced about the next bit. Allegedly new oil has worse protection than slightly used oil. I don't get that and certainly on my old school diesel G Wagen I change the oil every 3 to 5k miles (that gets a little pricey at 8 litres a time!).

I'm pretty relaxed about 18k on a new car though, dependent on its use.

I wouldn't push it as far as a friend of mine, first oil change at 80k on his diesel Audi A6!!
 
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I suppose it depends on how long you're going to keep a car, bought new and kept for just under 4 years you may only have one service, great, and cheap.
But I have to buy used at 40-60k 4-6 years old and keep the car until scrap, at £2 a month per year changing the oil every year is the single biggest factor to ensuring the engine is trouble free, even if you do nothing else to it. Add all urban cycle and lots of short trips this is why I'll always do it at least once a year, colour of oil is a great indicator of condition too if you keep an eye on it.
 
The Peugeot Expert van I drive, has service intervals of 20,000 miles. I've had the vehicle under my sole use since 1st July 2014 and it has it's 60,000 mile service next week. That will be just it's third oil change. If you pull the dipstick, it is frighteningly, black as coal and there is an element of sludginess on the stick. I have absolutely no control of the servicing of this vehicle, it is serviced in accordance with my Company Fleet policy. From a service perspective, I would never treat my own vehicle in this way. There is an expectation this vehicle will be with us for up to 5 years.....we'll see how long it lasts! :rolleyes:

My Saab engine however is unbelievably clean, well it would be with 5k oil/filter changes from new. It passes the smoke test on the MOT with quite literally, no smoke present. At £25 an oil and filter change, it's not exactly big cash is it?
 
I suppose it depends on how long you're going to keep a car, bought new and kept for just under 4 years you may only have one service, great, and cheap.
But I have to buy used at 40-60k 4-6 years old and keep the car until scrap, at £2 a month per year changing the oil every year is the single biggest factor to ensuring the engine is trouble free, even if you do nothing else to it. Add all urban cycle and lots of short trips this is why I'll always do it at least once a year, colour of oil is a great indicator of condition too if you keep an eye on it.
No darker oil does't necessarily mean the engine oil is bad. My oil goes dark brown after a few k miles! Now if it is tar black and juicy then maybe, but from what i experienced that only happens 12k + in. I just service my car once a year regardless of mileage, and do the spark plugs and all filters as well. Can't go wrong with that = )

In Greece at the petrol stations the attendant fills the tank for you (unlike UK which is self service). So they obviously offer to have a look at your oil for you. If they see it remotely dark, they say oh you need an oil change let's do it for you, and then proceed to sell you their oil and do an oil change with their synthetic brand at 20 GBP a liter! They then tell you no you don't need a filter every oil change we can just suck it out and put new oil in! Oh and last time they spent about 2 minutes trying to convince me to put 100 octane petrol in (at 1.37 versus 1.17 EUR a liter it is quite a big difference and basically pure profit for them). Sometimes, and i notice them doing this to women a lot, when the woman driver rolls up she says 20 Euros please and the attendant puts the super petrol in. So when you roll up you have to say I would like 20 EUR of 95 OCTANE please! To which invariably they say why not the 100? We have it on offer today =)))

Frankly I just like the self service option UK style.
 
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At least you can check your oil. Not possible on my Renault Twingo! Under security screws under the boot - no access... I've been to the dealership to ask them to check at 2K miles and they did (free of charge) but I still prefer to have a look myself.... I need to buy some security screwdrivers methinks! It was so much easier on my old Fiat....;)
Melanie, does your Twingo say "Oil OK" on the dash when you start it? If so, you may find that pushing the computer button gives an indication of the level. At least that's how it worked on the Megane we ran til last year. That also had an accessable dipstick, which obviously I would check periodically too.
My son's BMW 325i doesn't have a dipstick at all.
 
Thanks man, no lights on dash that I've seen (will have to have a better look at the manual) dipstick is under the boot floor so will need security screws to access. All other fluids under the bonnet... I'm sure that the system is sound, but would still be happier if I can check for oil- call me old fashioned! Sorry for the OT
 
When you start the car and it says oil ok you just use the computer toggle button(the one that gives mpg, range, time driving ect ect) and it will show the oil level(y)

Cheers Bobby
 
True story.....:eek: but when I was about 19, which was quite some time ago now, I thought I'd change the oil on the Vauxhall Viva I had at the time. I also thought it would be a grand idea to put engine flush in it. Well me and instructions at the time didn't exactly go hand in hand and I drained the oil from the car, put back the sump plug and then I poured the engine flush in and turned the engine over. :eek: Well you might be thinking, hahaha! engine seizure, no, it didn't seize, it ran, for the full ten minutes, I stopped the engine and I drained it again. I was more than surprised of the absolute muck that came out and then it dawned on me exactly what I'd done lol!

That car went to a family friend and lasted for about another 5 years after that, quite how, I have no idea. :D
 
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