I think maybe, 'lazy' was a bad choice of words. Exausted would be more like it - Im a surgical resident and after long shifts, 24 to 36 hour on calls, I just dont have any energy.

But yeah, i say no to jiffy lube.

$180 just seems way too high for the dealership. Gad, I wish Adam were still at Patrick MINI

 

Or, get on NAM for the time you are waiting for the oil to drip....

 

FWIW, I called MoMV out of curiosity.
Oil Change - $89.95
Oil Service - $210.00 (referred to as a 'minor service')

I'll be doing it myself, thanks.

 

You just earned yourself something like $50 ($90 for MoMV's price less parts of ~$40).... If you have any kind of mechanical ability, paying someone else to do the oil & filter change just doesn't make sense to me. You are rolling the dice on the service tech not correctly setting the torque, and, and, and....

 

The main problem isn't the cost of going to Jiffy Lube or someplace similar, it's how they treat your car. I used to work for NAPA auto parts, and a big seller were oil drain plugs. Self tapping, over sized oil drain plugs, because the quick oil change monkeys were over torqueing the drain plugs on cars and stripping out the threads. Confirmed do it yourselfer.

 

Actually, it is the cost (of going to Jiffy Lube) - you just made the point about the screw-ups with the oil drain plugs. Add in the over-torqued filter housing and the collateral damage from that and you have a very compelling cost model for avoiding Jiffy Lube and their ilk.

 

It depends on who you trust.....
The manufacturer, the oil company, or yourself.

Yourself.....most people have little or no education or experience in chemistry or engineering yet seem to know exactly what is right for thier cars, mostly through what pappy always said.

Oil company, has a vested intrest in selling you more oil than you need. The 3000 miles was always a oil company recomendation.

Manufacturer.....Has a vested intrest in long term reliability and brand confidence, has hundreds or thousands of engineers and chemists...etc that know your car better than anyone else making a recomendation to you on brand, formulation and change interval

I follow the manufacturer instructions

 

If youre in the NYC area and need help with the oil change, PM me. I can give you a reference for my garage.

I am at 334 miles and plan on doing an oil change at 3000 miles.

 

I guess I'm one of those confirmed 3000 miles guys. I have a 1975 MGB I used to autocross and drive hard. At just over 100,000 miles I rebuilt the engine, and didn't have to do any machine work at all. Just replaced the bearings, gaskets and seals, and was good to go. Castrol 20/50 every 3000 miles.

 

The manufacturer has your best interests in mind up to a point. Ultimately, the manufacturer has its best interests in mind, whiich means it wants to keep its warranty repair bills at a minimum and keep you buying its cars.

I guess I would feel a whole lot better about following the manufacturer's recommended change interval (otherwise known as follow the counter), if they had specified a change at the completion of the break-in period and if they had a longer warranty period. Even a powertrain-only warranty of say, 100,000 miles, and I would be following the counter religiously.

However, since it is my nickel after the first 50,000 miles, I am buying an insurance policy of sorts by changing at a 7,500 mile interval.

 

True, but I would submit that this is more like GM's philosophy than toyota's. I would even be as bold to say as this is why the big 3 market share is declining while Honda and toyota is climbing. I must admit though that it does not seem that BMW's last past 200k. But these long change intervals are common accross all brands it seems

So, that is to say that if BMW wants to sell me another car, this car better last till 200k miles, on thier direction, or I will NOT be a return customer, nor will I recomend any of thier products.

 

I think a big problem is where you live... I live in a townhome complex, and they will not let you do ANY work on your car other than checking stuff or cleaning the interior... I started to think about it the other day, since I usually like doing my own oil changes... I'm just glad the MINI doesn't need one for so long... I was concerned at first that this seemed like a really long time between oil changes, but hey then I thought that if you are going by the manufacturer's suggestions and something goes wrong, it's their fault not yours!

 

Only if you are within the warranty period. After that, and it is your nickel.

The real unanswered question is what process is best for long engine life? MINI is silent on that matter.

 

There are a whole bunch of reasons why GM's market share is declining while Honda/Toyota's is increasing. A significant (maybe even the primary one) reason is the cost model differences. One example: because of the large number of retirees that GM has to cover health insurance costs for, the health insurance cost adds ~$1,500 to the cost of each car they sell. Honda/Toyota and the like don't have that (retiree health insurance) cost factor to deal with, so they are not as focused on cutting other costs (such as warranty repairs). Is that a level playing field? I tend to not think so.

 

My MINI is the first car I've ever owned, so I was unfamiliar with the regular oil changes every 3000-5000 miles or so.. I have gone 15,000 miles (by my own fault) without an oil change, and I would NOT recommend it. From now on I'll be changing my oil myself every 5000 or so with Redline.

On that note, I purchased some jackstands, an oil drain pan, and did my own work at home, and I still came out ahead. And I'll be able to use the stands for other things besides changing oil!

It took a while (around 45 mins) since it was my first ever oil change, but everything worked out properly! That drain plug is a pain to remove without sufficient leverage! And that 36mm hex for the oil filter is a pain to put back. I think it took 20 minutes just to put it in! I'm sure it'll take less time in the future.

Now that I've done it, it's easy as pie! And I'll save 100+ bucks every time by doing it myself!

Here's for DIY'ers!

 

Even so....domestic models are still cheaper, model for model and option for option and when the consumers are widely choosing to pay more for a for a japanese car because of long term reliability reputation. IF automakers can't figure that out, and are recomending service intervals that shorten life-span of vehichles.....Then that philosophy would be the number 1 reason for the domestic manufacturer downfall. However, I dont believe that warranty costs have anything to do with service interval because, quite frankly, If you NEVER change the oil...the car will last at least past the first 50k well past the warranty......On the other hand, BMW is rather unique in that as a selling point they offer free maintence, so THEY might have a intrest in keeping the interval long, but the BMW/MINI service interval is not out of line with any other manufacturers. So you come back to the question of whether auto makers are deciding intervals to shorten lifespan, and I have to say that the recomended intervals for toyotas are comprable to those of GM......And I don't think that toyota is sacrificing the great beneifit of an outstanding reputation just to save a few dollars when they have gm in a headlock for that very reason

 

Guy at a BMW service garage told me 7k for synthetics. I got mine used and the previous owner changed oil every 7500 mile religiously, so I am going to continue the trend. $80 a pop is pricey, but worth it in the long run!

 

Well, yeah, obviously... sorry, didn't feel it was needed to add that in, but oh well

 

Another good reason for doing your own oil changes, is while you're under the hood and under the car, you get a chance to look around for any possible problems.

 

I happened to check my oil level the other day and was surprised to see that it was over 2 quarts low! I had assumed (maybe stupidly) that with the synthetic, the level would be fine in between the recommended oil changes as indicated by the service light. Anyway, my past experience with cars is that any burning of oil is a sign of something bad. I am at MINI to get a few other things checked and asked them about this and they told me that it is normal for the synthetic to burn off over time and that is why they recommend to check the level every time you get gas. This seems weird to me...anyone have any insight? From now on, I am not waiting for the service light and am going to go with more regular oil changes but maybe I am being paranoid...

 

Is there some reason you do not want to check the oil level each time you get gas? The basic idea is to not wait until you have a low engine oil light. Engines will burn oil - more if the car is driven aggressively. Changing oil more frequently (than the counter indicates) definitely won't hurt your engine. But the real issue (even with more frequent oil & filter changes) is checking the oil level. (On some sort of regular schedule that doesn't get missed - that is why the suggestion of doing it each time you fill the gas tank....)

 

According to different manufacturers, it can be considered 'normal' for a car to burn up to a quart every few thousand miles. *I* don't consider it normal, but they do. You may have gotten a 'loose' engine, with a bit less sealing around the rings so you get oil blowby. It has nothing to do with synthetic oil, IMO. (I didn't lose a drop in 4k miles)
Not much you can do other than checking the oil regularly (which you should do anyway.)

 

One reason manufacturers used to have long oil serive change intervals is those numbers are used to calculate "cost of ownership." Cost of ownership is often sited by car magazines and consumer product reports.

In the 80's, when synthetics weren't common, most owners manuals recommended oil changes every 7,500 miles. To me that seemed excessive and everyone, including dealers, recomended changing the oil every 3,000 miles. Surely, synthetic oils last longer and maybe changing it every 10K does no harm. Mini recommends the first oil change at 10K. It just made me feel better to change the "break in" oil at 2K. Maybe I wasted money but, since I did it myself for less than $40.00 (OEM filter and Mobil 1 synthetic) peace of mind was worth it. I'll change it again at 6K, let the dealer do it for free at 10K. After that my oil will be changed every 5K (do it myself every other time until the free oil changes run out.)

I understand everyone doesn't want to, or can't for various reasons, change their own oil but paying anything more than $80.00 seems excessive.

BTW, there are some good posts on NAM which give very detailed instructions on how to do it yourself.

 

Jiffy Lubes horrible, in my old VW they took down the skid plate and let the oil pour down it and then just put it right back, and it still cost $90 ridiculous.
And cause they didnt attach it right, i drove for a day or two with it hanging and had to replace it:-(

 

Find yourself a good local independant mechanic through one of your local clubs, That's what I did. I took my 2002 MCS to the dealer and I was quoted $280 for the "oil service" I said to the SA "what does that include/" He said "oil ,filter and lube". (I wonder if he meant a lube for me too) anyways, local mechanic charged me 344.00 but I got oil change, filter, lube rotated tires, K & N drop in air filter, cabin air filter, brake flush and replaced with blue high temp brake fluid, adjusted brakes ...There has to be a place that does MINI's where you live. I would rather give that money to an honest mechanic than to the dealer..