One of our Scudos, 90,000 (just in warranty, for what that has turned out to be worth, but the value, or otherwise, of warranties had better be another post,) lost power, ground to a halt, was recovered and stripped. It was found that the big ends had gone (number 4 being the prime culprit,) with the resulting movement allowing the piston to meet the head, and the con-rod movement to temporarily jam the crank. End of engine. Has anyone else experienced similar at relatively low mileage with a well maintained vehicle?

We have another (55 plate, 150,000 miles,) which has lost compression in number 4 (it joins in when the engine heats up, making more noise than it should,) and so it looks like it is going the same way. One would guess (a strip being expensive,) that the play in the bearing is lowering the compression ratio. Two others (56 and 07 plates, both around 60,000,) seem to be using oil.

Before the change to 18,000 mile service intervals, we found these engines used no oil and just ran and ran and ran. The old Dobbin we still have, uses not a drop between 12,000 miles services. We got rid of the last of the 2000/W Scudos a couple of months ago on 285,000. Now, however, the life expectancy of these 18,000 mile interval engines seems to be rather limited.

Does anyone know whether, when the change was made, changes were made to oil filters? Or were oil paths modified? Or was the change just a response to PSA?

Any experiences along these lines would be interesting.

Always suspicious about extended service intervals myself...

Quality oil is essential but I have still shortened my intervals to 15,000 miles.

I wonder wether turbo diesel engines will have the same life-span of normally aspirated versions over time?

18k miles is too long on any engine IMO, particularly those with turbos. Renault among others shortened their intervals on Laguna II and Megane II with the 1.9 dCi engines due to premature turbo failure caused by degraded oil.

Also of course with such long intervals the oil level is checked even less, if the owner doesnt bother.

I change the oil every 4 months on cars that do high mileage, in the case of my GPS I changed it every 6k miles or 6 months, and will continue to do so on the 500 to promote the best performance and longest life I can.

At a guess, I would say these longer intervals could be for 2 reasons, to promote 'green motoring' through fewer oil changes etc (at the expense of the vehicle) or a perceived lower running cost for owners during the warranty period (much more afterwards mind!)

I believe in "running in", 1,500 miles or so of light throttle, limited revs and no low rev pulling with an oil and filter change after that. I have had Alfas with minimal oil use between 12,000 services, and a 75 that was sold at 140,000 pulling as well as it did new.

Nowadays we are told it is unnecessary, which may be true for the warranty period, but I think there is lasting damage which manifests itself at higher mileage.

Mike