Do You Go By The Owner's Manual Maintenance Schedule?

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Sep 18, 2002
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I was posting in another post and I started thinking (I hadn't been up to that point), "I wonder how
many of us actually go by the suggested maintenance schedule for our vehicles?"

I don't. I do things more frequently for the most part. Oil, air filters, coolant, ATF, Gear Oil, Brake Fluid,
Power Steering Fluid, Plugs all get changed/replaced at my own schedule. Normal schedule is about 50-75% of
what the manufacturer recommends.

Of course, I ain't accepting less than 300k with a goal of 500k out of my cars. Those goals probably require drastic
maintenance measures if they are to be attained.

I see many of us talk about doing whatever is necessary for the warranty period. I don't get that thinking.
Are you just doing the minimum to make sure you will be covered under the warranty and then when the
warranty period is up resort to some really stretched out negligent schedule? My observation is that most any decent
car would get through the warranty period with minimal maintenance. Heck, you don't even have to change the ATF
ever in most cars. Lifetime Fluid. Yeah, right....

Is it the best to take maintenance interval guidance from someone who makes money only when your car breaks?
Is their goal to make money? It sure ain't to keep our cars on the road for much over 100k.

My Saturday rant. Feel free to start dissecting. ;)
 
I totally agree with you. Extreme maintenance will get you many more miles without having to replace parts. IMO most of the recommended manufactures maintenance intervals are too long for most vehicles. I usually change oil and filter at 50 percent of the OLM system and know I will not end up with an oil burner.
 
I’m using 50% on my OLM on my 2008 Chevy 6.0, which turns out to be about 5,000 miles. I had noticed that GM lowered the OLM in 2014 for LS engines from about 10,000 miles to 7,000 miles. I have 205,000 miles on it and am targeting 300,000 miles. In the past 12 years I averaged 7,000 miles. “ If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself” :)
 
Every 10k:

Oil and filter
Rotation

Every 20k:

Oil and filter
Rotation
Fuel filter
Cabin filter
ATF D&F

Every 50k:

Differentials
Transfer case
Air filter

This more or less falls in line MFG recommendations.
 
I make up my maintenance schedule to fit the operation and use of the vehicle. For example if you had a Frod F350 you ran hard with heavy loads daily the maintenance schedule would be different than if you weekly drove it to the mall .
 
Got 300K miles out of a 4.6 2005 Crown Vic. It was serviced every 5K miles. Did ATF every 30K miles. Coolant was changed out every 60K miles. Plugs were done at 170K miles and still looked good when changed out. I only used 87 octane fuel.

Nothing major was ever done do it. Biggest thing was the accumulator for the a/c and that was done at 200K miles. The a/c was constantly on the entire time I had it.

I never did the brake fluid flush or power steering flush as do not believe that is necessary. Just IMHO but that is just me.

Oil used was Mobil 1 and sometimes Motorcraft when the dealer serviced it.. Only used 5w20. Never had to add oil between oil changes. Oil always had the clean amber look to it.
 
I generally follow the maintenance schedule for all my vehicles, in the case of my 2018 Subaru Outback it seems that I must whether I like it or not. The car was acquired with a 100,000 mile extended warranty and I followed the maintenance schedule to maintain not only the car but also the warranty. I was hoping to get away with extended oil change intervals after the warranty expired but the engine has developed an oil consumption issue to where no oil lasts much beyond the factory recommended 6000 mile OCI. So I will probably just be sticking to buying cheap oil for that car that will last for 6000 miles and go from there.
 
A 2013 VW GTI I owned called for 10K OCI's, but the majority were done at 5K. That engine is known to be hard on oil and wear the timing chain and related parts when doing factory specified OCI's. My wife put a ton of company paid miles on the GTI and I sold the car to my brother and he has over 170K on it.
Original turbo and timing chain parts. I do 5K OCI's on my wife's Audi which has basically the same engine as a VW GTI.
 
I follow the manual. Most all my driving is highway so it works for me.
 
I make sure I meet the warranty requirements regarding maintenance. Beyond that, I adjust my schedules to fit my conditions, but generally a bit on the conservative side.

On my workplace ag. equipment, I relax the schedules. I.E., it is senseless to replace the tractor air filters annually ($80 each) as recommended when I don't operate in severe dusty conditions and only accumulate 120 hours a year (vs. real farmers discing in dusty fields and accumulating 500+ hours/year).

Some here will throw out the economics of over-maintenance not being cost effective, but with our personal equipment we don't have to live by the rules of business (eating out would not be allowed).

Common sense should prevail but many of us here let OCD take over. I don't care what others do or what they think of what I do.
 
Some here will throw out the economics of over-maintenance not being cost effective, but with our personal equipment we don't have to live by the rules of business (eating out would not be allowed).

Common sense should prevail but many of us here let OCD take over. I don't care what others do or what they think of what I do.

amen and amen:giggle:
 
My cars all get 5K oil changes except for the lightly used trucks that get bi-annual changes. The only rig that normally gets fancy synthetic motor oil is my wife's Expedition due to the 3V 5.4 Triton valve train issues. I also change transmission fluids more often than specified as most vehicles I've had to get rid of in the past two decades has been due to transmission failure. Ever since I got a $1500 quote to change a heater core on an Isuzu, I've been religious about coolant changes, too. Everything gets a bi-annual coolant drain and fill.
 
I am like most here, I do all my vehicle oil changes early. It is hard for me to go 5-6,000 miles. Wife has a 2017 RAV4 and Toyota recommends 10,000 miles not me. My 1991 Rangers oil gets changed one time a year only drive it maybe 3,000 miles annually. I have a 1997 Explorer over 200,000 miles an in normal times gets changed twice a year.
 
I tend to follow the OEM maintenance schedule, but modify it a little to what I think is best. For example, the maintenance schedule on my wife's Outback doesn't call for CVT fluild change, but I do it on a 60k mile interval. Nor does it call for power steering flush and fill, but it also gets changed every 60k miles. Windshield wiper blades are changed every 15k miles, because I can't stand wiper blades that don't perform properly.

Do my cars wear out before your cars? I doubt it, but frankly, I don't know. By the time a car gets about 250k miles on it, I get tired of driving it, and it gets sold to someone that is looking for a very dependable, but inexpensive used car.

I've never seen any evidence that over maintaining a car extends it's life. Does anyone recall the first well publicized account of a million mile car? It was some guy up in Maine. According to the article, "In terms of servicing his vehicle, LoCicero has followed the owner’s manual and maintenance schedule to a T, according to Honda." He was able to reach a million miles by following the Honda maintenance schedule.

Now that I think about it, this was actually the second well publicized million mile car. The first was a BMW 325i that Mobil 1 ran for a million miles, then did a complete tear down and inspection of the engine. They did all maintenance to the BMW maintenance schedule.
 
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