How often should you service your car?

Americans' seemed to have been conditioned to think oil and oil filter needs changing 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000 miles. I suppose that's good for the sellers of oil and keeps mechanics busy too.. although such frequency certainly does no harm to any car.

In UK it seems to be most often recommended that oil and oil filter get changed every 10,000 miles or every 12 months, with optional changes between those times.

Depending on what car you have, it's possible for even a total noobie to do interim oil and filter servicing, quickly and with a lot of ease. Especially so if your car gives access to the oil filter from the top of the engine bay (instead of having to go under the car)

Also to save yourself £BIG money on not having high labour charges at many a garage/mechanic. And it can be done at your convenience, instead of ringing ahead, booking appointments, travelling and waiting around.

The only downside to this, is that you don't get a dealer's stamp in your book... if you are paranoid about those stamps adding value to your car when you come to sell it. Also check whether it affects your warranty on newer cars. However I always keep receipts stapled in for oil and filter when I do mine (and other parts like spark plugs and air filter - equally pretty easy job on some cars) to give proof and reassurance that job was done.

This is a wonder device. It's called a Pela Oil Extractor Pump.




One secret you may not know is that many an official dealer, from BMW to Volkswagen, use these, but bigger hardwearing industrial versions, to do the oil change on cars. I've got the official servicing manuals for many a car, and extraction is often the first way suggested to do the oil change, with sump nut removal the alternative way if extraction can not be used (not all models it can be used on). Some cars like the Smart Car don't even have a sump plug, the only way old engine oil is removed is by extraction.

A big advantage of using the Pela is there is no messing around under the car, and no risk of damaging the sump by over-torquing a new sump-plug (over-torquing a sump plug can cause leaks or big damage if torqued too tightly into aluminium sumps, stripping the thread - even trained mechanics at dealers can be guilty of this.)

Click this link for a guidance video on how the Pela is used to do an oil change, and to see how brilliant and hassle free it is. He does both the oil filter and the Pela oil change (requires Quicktime installed to view)

However there are just a few cars it will not work on. Some manufacturers put blockers in the sleeve (usually orange coloured) of the dipstick tube, which prevents the pela tube getting access. You can usually tell in advance if you dipstick is an awkward or very tight fit when putting it back in the sleeve then the Pela might not fit. If it fits in easy then usually the Pela will be fine to use.

Note: Its important to warm your car up by taking it for a 15 minute spin before doing an oil change. This heats the oil up and makes it flow out easier (both using Pela and if removing sump-plug). Be careful if you get the oil too hot.

And it's vitally important that all old oil is disposed of in an environmentally good way. You might not believe terrible damage caused by just 1 litre of old engine poured irresponsibly in to the drains or earth. It's horrendous and gets in to the water table, seriously contaminating areas. Many a local tip/dump has an old engine oil recycle point, where you pour the old oil into... and gets recycled into heating oil.

Check out these YouTube oilchange/filter change videos for other tips for oil and filter change (most go under the car) as they are very educational to the process, even if just using the Pela - like lubing the new oil filter's o-ring with a bit of oil as it prevents it getting bonded on for next time you remove it. None of the videos are fully perfect on the process, so always best to glean the best info from each and different sources.

YouTube1
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I have to agree with dopester about the Pela oil extracter - it really does make chaning the oil much easier.

to answer the original question, look at the manufacturers recommendations for the service intevals. If you drive hard or do a lot of stop start driving in traffic then change the oil and filter half way through the service inteval.

I service my car myself so I do a proper oil change at the service inteval and use a Pela oil extractor at the half way point. I have found that the oil extracter does pretty much get all of the oil out. If you're using good oil all of the contaminents will be suspended in the oil and will be completely removed with the oil extractor (not neccassarily the case if you have rubbish oil that has turned to sludge).


Also, its a good idea to do some weekly checks - Tyre pressures, fluid levels and lights. I cant belive the amount of people I see driving round with under inflated tyres - this significantly increases braking distances and the risk of having a blow out (it also causes fuel economy to drop)

Wig wrote: »

Certainly do not agree with this post.

Some cars now have service intervals of 20,000 miles - that is rediculous. You can only benefit the car by changing the oil & filter every 10,000. Some people go for 6,000, (I go for 10,000), If you do it yourself it is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

I agree with Wig.

How you service a car depends on a numbers of factors: mileage, time and traffic.

Most fleets love the 20k schedules because it keeps costs down. If you're a private owner then have an intermediate oil change. If you don't have the know-how then take it to National (which Stephen Leak mentioned). IIRC you also get Tesco Clubcard points at National and a semi-synthetic oil change costs about £25. Most franchised garages will charge £50 for the oil alone.

If you are a change-my-new-car-every-three-years person then stick to the manufacturers recommended schedule because you'll get no benefit from additional oil changes as you will be dumping the car when the warranty is up anyway.

If you buy a car and keep it until it expires then definitely change the oil sooner.

Everyone has their own opinion on oil changes, and IMO its a waste of time to change it more often that the manufacturer recomends, but it also cant do any harm. What has not been mentioned here is that oil technology has moved on in leaps and bounds over the last 10 years, and although the extention of service intervals is partly cost driven, lets not forget that most service intervals are standard across a range in most countries, and other parts of the world do not have the same lease culture that we have. i am currently running 2 cars on extended service intervals and for me the servicing is less often, so in turn cheaper over the period I own the car, and I spend less time going to the garage - currently once a year / 18K miles. I also know of people who have run cars on long life servicing plans to 150K with no complaint or issues, so I just think that servicing a car over and above the schedule is just futile in most cases.

Deleted by dopester