Does anyone know what the service interval calculation is based on? We all know it fluctuates, and some of us shiver at the thought of changing the oil strictly on the service intervals. I thought I read somewhere a few years ago that the service interval was based on gallons of gas consumed, and it multiplied that number by your average mpg to come up with a distance. Google search of NAM, motoringfile, and Mini2 didn't turn up anything. Can anyone support that theory or am I just losing it?
I don't know the specific formula, but MPG seems like a simple way to figure it. The lower your MPG the harder you are on the engine, either because you're driving hard or stressing it with stop-and-go driving. I have a feeling only Mini knows for sure. (I've never gotten mine close to zero. Even when I went a year between oil changes there were still a couple thousand miles left to go on the countdown.)
The MINI ECU uses several things to calculate this. Including: Cold starts short trip drives Fuel use There are a couple others, I'll look it up in my training manual tomorrow. But obviously fuel use is the biggest factor.
The easiest thing to do is ignore it and change the oil annually or every 7,000 miles. My service indicator is at something like -40,000
Thanks Way. Yeah, it's easy for me to change every 5-7k; convincing others to do that can be tougher. It seems like every 2-3 months somebody comes on the local forum and asks if they should really follow the service interval indicator and change their oil every 15,000 miles. Grrrr...
When I was putting high daily mileage on my MC, the interval went way over the recommended miles to change the oil. On the first change, if I remember right was 10k miles, it ran up to 13k. I had changed it twice by then. I now change it every 4-5k miles, and have not bothered to reset the count down thing in years. Mark
i disregard my service indicator and change oil and filter every 4,000. obssesive, maybe , but it's an old habit and i feel better when i use that interval, boxcars