Hey guys...need your input on this one.

I bought a new MCS 2004 in January. I don't drive it a lot (not by choice, trust me) so I've only put 2500 miles on it in 6 months. At the rate I'm going I wont be hitting 10,000 miles any time soon. When should I do an oil change. Oh, by the way, letting someone else drive it so it can reach 10,000 miles sooner is STRICTLY out of the questions.

 

Good question... I have an 04 Cooper with 4K miles... bought at the end of October 2003. Suggestions?

 

Yearly.....if you're a nutter, every six months......

 

My friend who is a Porsche and VW specialist said that a good rule of thumb when you have a brand new car is to change the oil after the first 1000 miles, or at the end of the break in period. And I have also had alot of "car people" say that waiting till 10,000 miles is crazy, even with synthetic oil. They say you should still change the oil at least every 5000 miles, if not more.

Just my 2 cents.

Enjoy the weekend!

 

When synthetic oil first came out, they reccommended changing it every 25,000 miles! I used to change the filter and top up the ol' synthetic every 5000 miles and I've never had a car with engine problems in over 40 years.

If you do not drive the car much, and do not live in a really dusty area, you should start the car and move it once a week to keep the tires from "flat spotting" and pump oil into all the galleries and supercharger if you have one. Also watch for rust on the brake rotors if the car gets little use.

There is really no need to change the oil a lot on a car not driven much with modern synthetic oil. The oil is not the danger to the car - lack of it is. One a year or every 10,000 miles sounds OK.

 

I was going to change my oil at about 4,000 miles, bought the oil and filter when I bought the car. Now that 9 months have passed and I've only got 2,800 miles on it I'm going to wait for the year and have the dealer do it. Mileage at that time will be <4,000. If I had driven the car more I would have changed the oil at least by 5,000 miles, synthetic or not. Why?....because it would make me feel better.


R.E.

 

I change mine every 3,500 to 4,000 miles. It's easy,it's cheap, and it makes me feel better too.:smile:

 

I'm just not comfortable with extended oil chnge intervals. Here in the desert the oil has a tough life. My other cars including the Corvette and Acura get an oil change every 3K to 3.5K miles even with snyth. oil. My '04 MCS is approaching 3K miles and I'm going to have the dealer change the oil when I take it in to have the alarm installed in a week or so. Seems to me that even @ $75 for a dealer oil change it's still pretty cheap insurance..................mgg

 

Jorg, I own five vehicles and so don't put more than a few thousand miles on each per year. General rule of thumb I follow is to change at 5K miles or 1 year, whichever comes first.

 

I just turned 6000 miles and no way I'm waiting for 10k...changing this weekend!

 

People really cling to old Myths!


Last Tuesday, my '04 MCS just received its first ever oil and filter change at 10K miles and 9 months (early Oct '03) since taking delivery. Absolutely ZERO problems and the oil still looked good. Car is running like a champ. Next oil change to take place in 15.4K miles and I am sticking to it.

My '02 Cooper CVT received its second oil change ever on Thursday at 25K miles. First oil change took place 15K miles ago and a little over a year. have driven all over the Eastern US in the car and guess what...the oil still looked pretty decent when it was drained from the engine. The dealer also replaced the CVT transmission oil, coolant and brake fluid. All of it as part of MINI Inspection II guidelines.

The Cooper CVT is running like a champ, no problems there either.

Either trust the Synthetic oil technology or don't. If you are going to change your oil every 3K to 5K miles, you are basically throwing away $$$$ in seemingly unecessary oil changes, so might as well switch to cheaper Dyno oils.

Just my opinion of course. But having 2 MINIS and following the manufacturer's (Computer calculated) service intervals in both cars have not yield to any problems to date.

 

Your dealer will change it at no charge under your free scheduled maintenance after one year. No matter how low the mileage. You will have to wait until January (after your date of delivery) or pay for your first oil change if you want it done now. This was the same situation I was in and Lauderdale Mini changed mine at no charge.

 

Its synthetic oil as mentioned above...you can go 12months from the
build date without a change and still be okay with a big margin. :smile:

I would change it once every year just to be safe.

 

For those of us who choose to change our oil more often than 10,000 miles testimony that someone has gone 10,000 plus miles without an oil change with, "absolutely no problems," isn't very convincing. I don't think anyone expects an overt problem to occur when the car has relatively low mileage, even if you didn't change oil at all. It's the minor engine wear that can occur from degraded oil and/or minute particles contained in the oil. Those of us who plan on keeping our MINIs for a long time feel that the extra insurance of more frequent oil changes is cheap peace of mind.

R.E.

 

Yes, you have to look at what we "think" and what is really happening.
MINI has a service interval for oil change based on the specs for the synthetic oil, the engine and it's average use and the fact that the warranty is for a period of 4 years/48,000 miles. If the MINI doesn't do well after the warranty time then too bad. But for MINI it has to be not in trouble during the warranty period at least due to oil changes hence the long oil change interval.

The synthetic oil folks say that the oil will last a long time and chemical analysis of the oil at long intervals shows that most of the time it is true that the oil still is doing quite well even when changed at over 10,000 mile intervals. The harder you drive and the worst the conditions the more benefit you have for changing oil. Synthetic oil is advertised to last a long time as a selling point to justify the higher cost. Indeed if you used it in a family car you could just watch the oil level and change oil less often than if you used convention oil.

Clearly if you change synthetic oil "too early" then you are wasting it. You are paying for the added benefit of the synthetic oil to outlast the regular oil but you are changing the oil as if it were regular oil. But you want the oil to protect the engine and make it last for a long time so you want to find a good compromise.

From reading the many posts on oil change here is what I have found-
As an early oil change interval you make choose to change your oil from about 1200 to 3000 miles if you wish. Or you may wait till about 5000-6000 miles or one year for the first oil/filter change. Thereafter you can do oil changes at the dealer intervals if you do regular commuting and street driving or about twice as often as the service intervals if you do autocross and track the MINI so about every 5000-6000 miles or so. This is pretty safe.

Always check oil level as it may run up to 0.5 quarts low in as little as 3000 miles in some MINIs. If you have the stock oil then add Castrol Syntec 5W-30 full synthetic oil and not the Castrol Blended synthetic. Don't mix brands if you can. Walmart has the Syntec for about $5 a quart.

And for those who do take the time to change oil frequently don't forget to also flush and fill your coolant and replace and fill your brake fluid at regular intervals for best performance and longevity of your MINI. I plan to keep my MINI for more than 10 years so I want it to last for 150,000 miles or more.

 

resmini,

Those were my thoughts exactly. You could probably run it with half the oil drained out and make it 10k miles with no trouble.

If I'm going to err in my oil change interval, I want that error to be on the "too frequent" side.

Oil and Filter = CHEAP
Engines + EXPEN$IVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just changed my oil and filter at 1700 miles and put in a magnetic drain plug.

With Synthetic or Dino oil either one, I would NOT let it go more than one year regardless of mileage. A car that doesn't get driven much accumulates even more moisture and acid in the crankcase than does a car that is driven often. A car that is driven often gets the oil to operating temperature allowing the moisture to boil off and keep the acids more under control.

The main reason that oil is changed is NOT because it loses its lubricating ability, it is because it is the only method we have for cleaning the engine internals to keep moisture and acids under control.

Change it hot and change it often.

 

What about those oil testing facilities...does anyone have any trust in their analysis? I sent a 6 oz. sample of the factory oil from my 2003 MINI Cooper with around 8,500 miles on the oil (about 9 months of stop-and-go city driving), and the analysis came back with excellent results. In other words, all the ppm (parts per million) of metals and silicon and...etc.etc. were well within ordinary limits, and they even reported that the oil was still doing its job as it should...meaning, in unscientific terms, it was virtually good as fresh oil in terms of viscosity and flash point and moisture content, etc. etc.

Now that I've put on about 7,000 miles on the "new" oil after the first dealer-serviced oil change at 10K, I'm going to send a sample in again for another analysis. This time, they will have the numbers from the first test to use as a baseline for comparison.

Oil analysis is a good idea anyway, because they also test for antifreeze in the oil, which usually a sign of a blown gasket, which would warrant immediate repair. It costs about $25 for an analysis and personally I think it's a better idea to spend the money there than to shell out $75 for unnecessary dealer oil changes every 3K miles. Or, if you do your own oil changes, it's still a good idea to get an oil analysis once a year just for peace of mind.

Motor On,

-Boognish

 

Is there anyone out there who is willing to say "I followed the factory recommended oil change interval for my car and it destroyed my engine?" I highly doubt it. If you change your oil every day, I am sure your engine will last longer than if you follow the factory recommendations, but by a statistically tiny amount. Certainy not worth the cost. When you consider the extra cost of synthetic oil and weird filters you will have to locate, if you just change your oil 4 times extra over the life of the car, you have spent about $200 for very little benefit. Take the $200 and take your wife out for a romantic weekend. Better investment.

I'm willing to bet that locating and using a good quality filter for this car will be much more important in the long run. If there is a K+N or Mobil 1 extra high quality filter for this car, that is where the real benefit lies.

 

Excellent! looking forward to your 25K miles oil analysis report.

 

I guess if money is your big issue, then change your oil every ten thousand miles or so. But for the rest of us who can afford it, who cares how often we change our oil. Not like it's going to have a negative affect.

 

I don't think it is about a "money" issue as you call it. Rather, trusting the technology and let it do its job. So far I haven't had any problems following MINI's suggested maintenance and oil change schedules.

Going by your reasoning, sure why go cheap on a $20K+ auto? Makes no sense from any perspective, but I think most owners still feel quite intimidated by the idea of leaving the same engine oil in there for 10K-15K miles. We have been taught and drummed into our heads that engine oil should be changed every 3K miles and that is certainly true for Dino oils, but Synthetic oils are a totally different beast and seem to offer equal to superior protection with minimized requirements for frequent changes.

It is up to you, really.

 

OK, you stick with your guesses about the results of more frequent oil changes on engine longevity and I'll stick with mine. Your example is a bit exteme, most folks who change oil every 4000-5000 milies instead of 10,000 plus won't be changing it every day. Those who do will be really, really tired.

That it's "not worth the cost" is an opinion, not a fact........just like my opinion that it's easily worth the cost.:smile:

 

I changed my oil (04MCS) at 2200 miles using Redline 5W30. Will have done again at dealers using my Redline 5W30. After that I have no problem with going 10K-15K between changes. Most important is to use a TRUE 100% synthetic oil. Castrol does not fall into that catagory.

 

Would you "Trust the technology" on say a Hundred + thousand dollar car? or would you be more inclined to change the oil a little more often?

 

Here is a vote for definitely changing the oil & filter after the break-in period (without fail - get all of the little metal particles that the engine throws off during break-in out of the lubrication system). Then, you have a decision to make regarding whether to change at the 10,000 mile point or some shorter interval. But in any event, if you are not hitting even the 10,000 mile threshold every year, then I personally would change the oil (and filter) at least once a year. When you do the oil (and filter) change, you have an opportunity to inspect the underside of the car for any damage that may have occurred that has not made its presence heard/felt that if fixed could avoid a more expensive failure.