My R56 has 11500 miles on it and I stopped in the dealership today to pickups some all weather mats. I asked the service manager a couple of questions and mentioned I was due for the 15000 checkup soon. He took my keyfob and stuck it in a reader and said according to the OBC I have another 14000 miles to go. I did change the oil myself at 7500 miles thinking I'd split the difference between what I thought were scheduled changes. No way am I waiting till 25000 miles. I'm not sure how the OBC decides how long you have to go, I can't believe it can tell how dirty or "used" the oil actually is. It must use my driving habits. If it really can sense the condition of the oil and I keep changing it every 7500 miles the dealer will never have to change my oil. I guess that's not true. They will do it after two years or in my case about 50k miles!!!!! What a bunch of crap.

 

I believe the dealer will also change the oil annually, whether or not you've racked up enough miles for the OBC to think you're "due".

 

Or, if there's an independent shop that specializes, you could get it done there. (Austin has Terry Sayther -- I'm not taking a MINI to Jiffy Lube)

Mine has about 13K miles, and it says I'm 9,000 miles out. That tells me the OBC is doing at least some kind of variation depending on driving conditions.

 

My SA says one year, regardless of miles. I changed mine at 1250, will again at 5000 mile intervals and let the dealer do it at 1 year intervals.

 

I said nuts to when the OBC says to change the oil. I do the oil and filter every 5k and reset the OBC when the counter gets to 0.

 

At one year regardless they will change the oil. I had mine done at just over a year and I still had a long way to go acording to the OBC. They also didnt reset the OBC that way I can get another service in about another 3000 miles.

 

How do you reset the OBC after an oil change?

 

Del Chili: No one knows.

There is a process for resetting the service interval for R50/R53 available at a number of websites, including mini2.com and minimania.com. That process won't necessarily work for R56 or newer, as we have conditioned base service with multiple subsystems, rather than a single service interval ... and, since the process requires a key, isn't applicable anyway.

Until you reach the end of dealer-provided service, it's not critical. After that, someone may publish a how-to, or, we may have to purchase a computing platform that plugs into the on-board-diagnostic port under the dashboard.

 

When I bought my '03 MCS (used), the dealer had just serviced it, and it said 12,500 till the next service. I've now driven 7,000 miles and it says 9500 to go! I think I'm going to follow my usual schedule and just change it twice a year.........

 

Well, that's what I like, something simple.

Thanks

 

BMW states first oil change at 25,000. Somethings to consider are the obvious operating conditions. My MINI has 10,000 KILOs on it, Bought it through Military SALES, at a substantial discount if I may Add, The car routinely is driven is all sense the word. Autobahn 5 @ 147 mph constant. The oil looks just like new. Its synthetic, These European Cars are mechanically able to go this long. Heck even my 1992 euro spec BMW goes 10,000 between changes. 25 seems a stretch, but hell, its warrantied by BMW

 

Since service interval has been the key concern in this thread, I'd like to point out that the Prince engine's announcement in 2004 said:http://www.psa-peugeot-citroen.com/d...1103281940.pdf

I have elected to use the OBC for service intervals, and am currently at 11,000 without changing the oil. I have 8000 left to go. I have topped up with BMW branded 5W30, provided to me by my MINI dealer.

Are long life usages reasonable? Sure. For example, Amsoil SSO is rated for 35K miles / 1 year in normal service (such as MC), 17.5K miles in severe service (such as MCS). This is above and beyond the OBC's electronic oil quality monitoring, so if after my maintenance period I want to use the OBC, I may drop down to Amsoil ASL. That one is a less fancy oil, and only has a 25K/15K service life.

The MINI owner's manual states that any API SH oil can be used for topping off between changes. But they're fairly insistent on "High Performance Synthetic Oil approved by the manufacturer of your MINI" or "MINI High Performance Synthetic Oil."

 

Resurrecting this thread...

I recent bought a pre-owned Mini ('06 MCSC) and have the same concern about relying on the OBC to tell me when to change the oil. The first change was at 10,600 (original owner). Now at 27,300 miles, Inspection 1 is due; that's 16,700 miles on the 2nd batch. Even with synthetic oil, I find this stretching it.

The OBC does NOT analyze the oil while it's in the engine but uses a complex algorithm to determine the next service point. If, for example, there's fuel dilution, coolant leak, air intake leak, faulty crankcase ventilation, the oil would degrade at a faster rate. Both VW/Audi and Mercedes have had trouble with these systems, which resulted in sludged engines.

The best way is to take a sample of the used oil and send it in for an analysis.

 

I have the oil changed much more frequently than the OBC calls for. In the beginning it was every 5,000 miles; now we've increased to about 7,500 miles.

IMO, the warranty isn't worth much in this case. After all, it only covers 48,000 miles. I generally keep a car much longer than that--our BMW 530i has 100,000 miles on it, and we have no plans to replace it. Our 325i was sold at 190,000.

Keep in mind, MINI (and BMW) want to sell you more cars. Changing oil 2 or 3 times during the service plan period is cheap for them. Changing a few more times is cheap insurance for US.

 

Yes that is true they want to sell you more cars. But does anyone have any proof other than the oil analysis that the car has broken down due to the long service intervals? There was a member on here that has 200K on the first mini and only serviced by the computer and hasn't had any issues.

 

If you want to keep your car running for a long time, then an oil change every 5K miles is the way to go.

 

Yeah... I think I've seen his posts saying that he relies on the on-board computer. However, he's using Amsoil which much more expensive. It's loaded with a very strong additive package to control acid, oxidation. He also changes the filter along the way (based on miles) and top-off with new oil.

 

Lots of possible problems with an OBC approach, IMO. For one thing, you'd be ASSUMING that the OBC is working! And we all know what the word assume means, right?

For another, what THEY set as a "bad oil" level might be different from what YOU'D set as a "bad oil" level. And driving on the highway is totally different from driving short distances only, especially in a cold weather state.

Nope, not for me.

 

I call BS, this is the biggest chicken little warning ever given by motorheads. Ive been changing my oil on my last three cars every 10k (all with high quality syth) all have made it well over 100K, and all are still on the road and running great AFAIK. If your changing your oil more frequent than that, good for you, but know your probably just wasting money, the little difference it might possibly make in the long run will probably only benifit the cars third owner 10-15 years from now.

 

Good point, but without oil analyses, your 10k mile interval is just as arbitrary as daffodildeb's 5k mile interval. You've both decided not to trust the OBC - your approaches just differ in the level of conservatism.

FWIW, I'm using 10k intervals as well. I've done about a half-dozen oil analyses at different intervals with different oils, and the MINI 5W-30 oil is pretty degraded in my car by about 9k miles. So, I've switched to a different oil that's giving me better results on the analyses, and stretched the interval to 10k, which is about halfway through the 21k intervals that my OBC has been recommending. That makes it easy to remember, since I change the oil when the OBC says to, and then change it again about 10k later.

 

Actually Scott I'm going by the 1 year rule, OBC is probably fine but I'm only putting @ 10k per year, so once a year is fine by me. If I was putting on 15-20K per and thats when the OBC said to change it thats what I'd go by, I cant see going longer than a year. The 10k rule was basically for my last three cars prior all VAG (2 Audi 1 VW), which was the mfg recomendation.

 

Well, actually, my last car, the 325i was 13 years old when sold, so I WAS the car's third owner, so to speak. That's pretty typical for how long we keep our cars.

 

Well you would certainly in the minority there. Also with all the things that can go wrong with a car, that have nothing to do with oil changes, it would probably make more financial sense to save the money you spend on extra oil changes so you can replace the car sooner.

 

I'm heading down the same route as you. Curious... which Synth lube are you using? Hope it's OTC brand.

 

Sadly, no. I'm using RLI BioSyn 5W-30. It's mail-order only, and it's not even a regular synthetic - it's a biobased/biodegradable oil, based on soybean oil, I believe. All I know for certain is that it's holding up a lot better than the MINI oil over time.