Thread: how often is too often (servicing) - some questions

ok, good consensus that more often is better for the engine. Heres another question;

is changing the oil more frequently likely to reduce the amount of gunk the EGR's create in the Y pipe? i imagine oil misting might be affected by the oils age?

All my D2's went for a service at 20000k or 12 months,whichever came up first,
The D4 goes at 24000k or 12months,whichever comes up first.

All the work vans(Toyotas) go at 10000k or six months as per manufacturers spec.
The few mitsubishi work vans that we still have, go at 15000k or 12 months,whatever comes up first,as per manufacturers spec.
Some of the vans have well over 300000k on them.

Never had an engine issue,ever.

IMHO,if the vehicle is serviced using the correct fluids as per manufacturers spec,and isn't driven in arduous conditions,then over servicing is a waste of time and money.

I tend to agree with the over servicing thing. I get my oils sampled regally - the engine I take a sample at 12,000km (service interval for D3) and not once has the oil pulled results thats remotely close to requiring changing. I usually change the engine oil at 15,000km, but with the oil sampling I'm going to see how much difference I get at 20,000km

IMHO,if the vehicle is serviced using the correct fluids as per manufacturers spec,and isn't driven in arduous conditions,then over servicing is a waste of time and money.

Agreed But what IF you had a Great 4WD that actually was used Off road instead of picking up the kids from school, going shopping or simply "Poncing" about driving around "Showing Off", Then Maybe just Maybe a more vigorous maintenance schedule would be more applicable

Originally Posted by trout1105

Agreed But what IF you had a Great 4WD that actually was used Off road instead of picking up the kids from school, going shopping or simply "Poncing" about driving around "Showing Off", Then Maybe just Maybe a more vigorous maintenance schedule would be more applicable

How about you have your oil sampled after your arduous 4WD usage and provide the evidence of it? That would be awesome, then we'd know it's actually required. I prefer evidence based decision making over ancient rituals. Yep, sure it's cheap insurance but so is a lotto ticket in this case and there's no evidence either way of a likely benefit.
Enough stirring, back to work.

Originally Posted by TB

Just out of curiosity I pulled the dipstick on my Discovery Sport this morning. It had its first logbook service at the LR dealer not two months ago and the oil is already black. Is that normal?

A very long tome ago, I was told "If the oil isn't dirty then it's not doing it's job". Old fashioned engines, old fashioned oils, but it still seems pretty sound to me. No IC engine burns so clean that there are no by products.

How about you have your oil sampled after your arduous 4WD usage and provide the evidence of it?

I have never had my engine oil "Sampled" But I would imagine that this service is not supplied Free of charge.
By changing the oil and filter you know with absolute certainty that the oil is Good to go, So I would rather spend the money on an oil change than on some sampling fee.
Highway driving and off road low range work in dusty conditions will obviously affect the engine oil quite differently So if you are mainly using the 4WD on the hard top then you could probably get away with changing the oil less frequently.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be able to do an oil change and it is not that hard a job and it is a far cheaper option to do it yourself than forking out hundreds of dollars for some apprentice at a workshop to do the job which is very often the case.

Put it this way frequent oil changes will Not harm your engine at all, Dragging out the frequency of an oil change to the point where the oil and or the filter is buggered is an entirely different matter all together

I think you are both saying the same thing. Normal intervals are fine except for arduous usage. In my Defender 20,000 is fine as its currently being babied.