I am nearing 27500 miles and i am still 800 miles from my second oil change.

I see alot of posts about first oil change but my question is when are people seeing the second oil change?

 

My computer was telling me 23K for the first oil change also, so I checked with my SA to see if this could be correct. The SA said it was NOT correct and that there was a firmware upgrade to correct the problem.

I took it in last week to have it done, and the display immediately dropped, showing that the first change will be at 16K. My MCS is a 01/2007 build.

 

So, if I decide to do extra oil changes and have them done by someone else with appropriate filter and A3 oil, will that cause warranty issues?

 

Only if they break something. I wouldn't go to one of the quick oil change places. They are in too much of a hurry and want to top up all various fluids with their bulk liquids. They don't really know what the MINI requires, although they'll probably swear that they do.

If you are going to have someone else work on it, take it to an independent garage that works on MINIs. Since the dealers are scarce, there seem to be a lot of independents who have experience with MINIs.

 

Sorry. Unbolt it and push it aside.
My "first" service will be my third actual oil change. If there's firmware to correct, I suspect they'll do it then. And fix my other nags (I hope).

 

When I picked up my 07 MCS the service indicator showed 19,000 miles until the 1st service. When I had 12,000 miles on the car it showed I had 14,000 miles to go until the 1st service indicating I could go to 26,000. I suspect that it would have begun to drop more quickly as time when on.

I had one of the MCS's that was supposed to have a multi-function steering wheel (MFSW), but the factory forgot to install it. The dealer installed the MFSW at 12,000 and had to completely reprogram the computer. This dropped my miles remaining until 1st service from 14,000 to 7,000 and the dealer said they didn't know why this happend and there was nothing they could do about it. I wrongly interpeted the indicator to mean that it was showing I would need the 1st service at 14,000 miles on the odometer NOT that the indicator was counting down. I thought the drop to 7,000 miles on the service indicator meant that at 12,000 miles on the odometer I was overdue by 5,000 miles for service. I sufficiently confused the service manager that the car needed it's first service at 14,000 miles on the odometer and they agreed to do so.

The dealer did do my first service at 14,000, which was well short of 1 year, but explained that they had made an error and that the service indicator needed to count down to 1,000 before it should be serviced and that is how it would be handled in the future. They reset the service indicator after the oil change and told me it was now showing 24,000 miles until service. I did not look at it right away, but later that day when I did it was showing 14,000 until service. So I don't know if it dropped 10,000 miles in a few hours or if they just thought it was showing 24,000 when in fact it showed 14,000.

It has been about 3 1/2 months since that service and I have put about 3,500 miles on the car. The service indicator has fallen by 6,000 miles during that time. From 14,000 to 8,000. Therefore it has fallen nearly twice as many miles as I have driven. Remember when I had the MFSW installed the miles to service was also halved from 14,000 to 7,000. I wonder if the calibration in the service indicator is too 'fast'.

I live in Colorado and it's been cold and the car does short trips during the week mostly with one long drive during the week and one or two on the weekends. It's kept in a warm garage too. I think winter driving with short trips is about the hardest use you can put motor oil to, but still the drop in oil life seems too much. I mean it's cold, but not below 0 cold and the garage stays above freezing.

I did my first oil change myself at about 5,000 miles and the dealer did the second at 14,000 miles so I had 9,000 on that oil. I'll change it again myself and it will have 6,000 or 7,000 miles on the oil. Then I'll have the dealer do it again when the service indicator shows it needs it or when a year comes up. If the miles to service keep dropping as quickly as they are now the dealer may be doing my next change with only 7,000 miles on the oil!

At any rate I think 7,000 is plenty between changes and doing one oil change inbetween annual dealer changes is cheap insurance even with excellent European formula synthetic. Since I do them myself it only costs about $35.

What's the least amount of miles anyone has gone before their service indicator showed they were due?