“Beep” my BMW i3 sounds as I turn it on, the dashboard ahead of me lightning up with a speedometer, range guess-o-meter, odometer, and other useful information. But I notice one new light: A red outline of a BMW i3 with the word “SERVICE” written above it. Apparently BMW wants me to change my car’s brake fluid and do an oil change.
I’ll do the brake fluid soon enough, and the oil change I’ll eventually do as well, though I’m in no rush; my oil has maybe 500 miles on it and it’s just one year old. Sure, there are more factors that go into oil quality than miles and age (like moisture content) — and in general I understand that automakers’ service intervals are based on actual data, but they’re also not catered to the individual.
Those service intervals are there to minimize warranty claims, while at the same time making the overall ownership experience more convenient (hence modern 10,000 mile engine oil change intervals and “fill for life” transmissions).
Speaking of “fill for life,” my BMW i3’s rear differential technically never needs its fluid changed. If this were a car that I wasn’t planning on keeping until the end of time, maybe I’d follow BMW’s interval, but the reality is that gears wear over time and send that wear into the working fluid, which itself can wear from all the shearing. In general, the cleaner your fluid, the longer your diff lasts, so why not try to maximize your car’s life expectancy?
Check out the metal shavings in my old i3’s “fill for life” diff:
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Anyway, I typically do my oils a bit earlier than the factory service intervals suggest, and when possible I’ll just check fluids visually (brake fluid, engine coolant) and maybe stretch the intervals a bit for those.
What about you? Do you follow what’s in the owner’s manual or do you live by your own rules?
Top Photo: Depositphotos.com
Only when I’m selling the car.
New car, did first oil change at recommended 7500 miles, free service last month. Will probably revert to 5k ish when I start paying. Last car almost made it to 250,000 miles before it was totaled, engine was still going strong.
2019 Honda Odyssey: to the letter
2009 CR-V: for the most part, yes, though that car doesn’t see 5k miles a year anymore.
2011 Touareg TDi: also yes, though I tow with it so the more conservative side.
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo: ha! No. This is a 40 year old summer and track car so it follows a very, very different schedule to what they recommended in Zuffenhausen.
Service interval on an E46 S54 is 25,000 kms for oil. I’m not sure they can physically actually go that long without a change.
I change oil (full synthetic, for whatever that’s worth today – it used to actually mean something) every 5k at most or one year in low-use situations. This is more aggresive than recommended for any of our cars.
Manual trans oil every 20k miles, same for diff.
Coolant every 20k miles or every time I need to service the cooling system.
Grease anything with a zerk fitting at every oil change.
Intervals are much lower for the lawn tractor which is probably the best-maintained machine in the fleet.
One car is an Ioniq 5 EV, and that’s leased so we just bring it to the dealer for tire rotations since it’s a big heavy pig and I don’t think my Miata jack could handle lifting the thing.
For the first time, yes. Bought an MDX new in 2012, and have followed the service intervals for 180k trouble-free miles *knock on wood*.
On my older cars, they get oil once every 2 years since I dont drive a ton. The daily goes by the computer prompts. Except timing belt, thats 115k no matter what.
I find it absurd that modern cars don’t prompt for all the regular service intervals.
The computers are certainly powerful enough.
I try. sometimes a push it a few thousand miles to spread out the cost. That burned me as Chrysler would not honor a cooling problem when I needed a new radiator and hoses because I did the coolant flush at 52k and not before 50K. Bastards.
Do it at home and change the numbers if you need to for documentation.
Worked for me when my FR-S motor blew up at 38k miles.
Depends on the car, but as a general rule I tend to lean towards the more conservative side of things. For example: Our Escape recommends transmission service intervals of 150k, and oil changes at 10k(conventional!!). No fuggin way. I do 4-5k on the oil, and about 30 on the trans. My other rigs I tend to just follow the “extreme” service intervals, since I don’t put a lot of miles on them. On my Volt? I’ll let the computers tell me when to do that. I’ve put 12,000 miles on the car since I’ve owned it, with probably only 500 or so miles of that with the engine running. Oil-life-o-meter says 49% (likely due to age).
You bet I’m gonna find a good use for that oil when I do change it at 0%, because it’s essentially going to be brand new oil!
Give it to a mechanic that heats the shop with waste oil. That’s what I did to clear out the jugs of Mobil-1 that took up almost an entire garage spot.
Live by your own rules, mostly because factory service intervals these days are too long. I know oil is way better, but your timing chains will thank you if you just go a little bit shorter and your wallet probably will barely notice. Problem is almost all new cars are receiving those stretched intervals (which really only care about getting the car past the powertrain warranty and keeping the Consumer Reports cost of living calculations low) right from brand new, so it’s tricker to find used cars with really good service history I feel like these days. I’m also a recovering mechanic so I’m traumatized by sludge, gummed up timing chain tensioners and the like, so that’s my bias…and don’t even get me started on “fill for life” bs…
I change my full synthetic every 3k-ish miles. It’s cheap insurance. Just did my diff fluid at 30k, transfer case at 30k, transmission next weekend when the (ridiculously expensive) transmission fluid I ordered gets in.
Oil change every 5,000. Transmission and coolant change at 50,000. Bowing to my OCD, wipers, air filter, and cabin filter change once a year at registration renewal time.
Like many, I consider the BMW’s recommendations to be like a best by date: A good suggestion, but not a rule. I change non-turbo oil every 10,000 miles and ship a sample to Blackstone to confirm that’s okay. Auto transmission fluid every 100,00 km per ZF’s (NOT BMW) recommendation. Differential and manual transmission fluid I do proactively when I get a new car, or every 100,000 miles. Brake fluid I use a moisture content tester and go off that recommendation when it shows red. Coolant whenever the radiator inevitably fails and I need to install a new one!
I will for sure follow the dealer email blast — that looked like it was from Hyundai Corporate — to change the oil and filter on my Hyundai Ioniq 5 every 5000 miles.
I have my own rules and intervals. Likely on an overkill side, but that probably has something to do with why my car still runs, drives and looks pretty much the same as when I bought it 13 years/130k miles ago.
I don’t know when to change the oil on my PHEVs particularly because one doesn’t show you the ICE only miles driven anywhere that I can find since the last change. They recommend up to 8k miles or a year on full synthetic oil or whenever the monitor goes off, but I barely drove it around 5000 miles last year since getting the vehicle with around 18000 miles on the odometer with the last 3800+ miles being primarily electric with the gas engine running a hand full of times to burn ~1/2 tank of 93 octane. I also just recently replaced our other vehicle with a plug in hybrid but this one does display EV miles as a separate line item in the trip logs making it slightly easier to tell when it’s hit 5000 miles or so on the gas engine. That one only has a few hundred miles on it so far though.
So yeah not easy to determine by mileage but maybe have to do it anyway even with clean oil.
Transmission fill guaranteed for life.
The life of the transmission
No.
Oil change every 5000 miles or annually – whichever comes first. Air filters bi-annually or every 30K miles or as needed. Brake fluid every 5 years or sooner depending on mileage and condition. Coolant when I do brake fluid. Auto trans and diff fluid every 60K miles.
A lot of those vary by use. My truck doesn’t accumulate mileage the way it used to, so it’s more calendar based. But it used to get service far more frequently. The family car still racks up miles, so more frequent service.
Every 10k miles for my Crosstrek. Even the oil companies says that synthetic can be good for up to 15k so I don’t see any reason to spend unnecessary money.
I always inspect the oil when it’s changed and it always looks relatively clean. I’ll be getting that oil analysis at 50K miles and I expect that it will show that everything is just fine.