How often should I service my BMW?

If your vehicle was manufactured after about 2001 it has onboard service interval indicators that will allow you to travel 25,000 klms (and further!) before your vehicle tells you it requires a service. This is just too long.

Now we are not and don't profess to be any sort of experts on motor oil, but after many years removing engine rocker covers to see the inside of an engine clogged up with oil and carbon deposits (oil mud) it is quite simple to see that no oil, even Castrol's excellent LL01 5W-30 fully synthetic that both BMW and we use, can last 25,000+ klms without breaking down.

The newer valvetronic 4 cylinder engines after 2001 suffer quite badly from this oil mud buildup to the extent we have seen engine breather pipes blocked solid causing the engine to run very rough among other maladies.

HERE is a picture of a cylinder head on a 328i that had not been serviced for almost 30,000 klms. This shows how badly oil mud can build up inside your engine.

For this reason we recommend a maximum of 12 months or 10,000 klms between oil and filter changes.

If your trips are many and short this should be adjusted accordingly.

On later model vehicles we can perform what is called an energy diagnosis.
This tells us (amongst other things) how may trips you have made and how long each trip has lasted.
This is invaluable for determining how often you should change your oil and filter.

This oil and filter change is relatively inexpensive and is the single best thing you can do for the long term health of your engine.