Six Monthly Servicing, or every 5,000 km's, Good Idea or Waste of Money ?

[Rodge]

With the Falcon's eventual demise clearly mapped out some of you like me may be wondering (if you're considering making your current car a permanent keeper), whether its a good idea to start more regular servicing to aid your collectible treasure's longevity ?

I think this is most especially pertinent with forced induction Falcon's / FPV's but I've long thought 1 year or 15,000 km service intervals are inappropriate for a high performacne forced induction engine anyway... but as I only do about 7,500 km's a year in my car I've stuck with the yearly servicing for now. That said I'm seriously considering bringing the servicing in to every 5,000 km's which for me would be about every 8 months.

I note HSV has had 6 monthly servicing requirements as does the Chrysler SRT8 and Holden have just gone to every 9 months with their new VF Commordore. On the other hand many of the high performacne Euro's are still annual or every 15,000 km's or so, (maybe Euro manufacturers want to sell you lots of outrageously priced parts down the track), opps there's the natural cynic in me leaking out again...

I know it can't hurt the engine to service it more often but is more regular servicing money well spent or money wasted in the long run, especially in the light of the fact that many of us will be keeping our current Ford's for ages, what do you think ?

[Trump]

I dump the oil and replace the filter every 7500km or every six months. Its cheap insurance.

[GQ_Smooth]

Every 10,000 for a NA, 5,000 for a Turbo, that's been my experience.

[GT0132]

I was getting my BA GT serviced every 6 months which worked out to be every 4,000 kms. I've now cut down the use of that car even further to the point where I now only do 5,000 kms a year so have stretched out the servicing to every 12 months. I have seldom ever walked out of the workshop without having handed over less than a grand, and the longer service interval is going to have little or no impact on the cars life. So I think, economically, it is a wise move. Our other car is a X5 diesel and that also gets serviced every year having travelled 10-12k kms

[Kable72]

It's cheap insurance, I cannot fathom why you wouldn't rather spend the hour and the 70 bucks to just at least drop the oil.

[GASWAGON]

Synthetic oils these days are highly advanced....I would service every 15,000 just like the manual says......Plus you are contributing to wasting all the Black Gold that is in the ground and becoming harder and harder to produce.

[Dash_XR]

Oil quality would probably be more important then upping the frequency wouldn't it?

Since my changes aren't as frequent now I'm thinking of just spending the extra on Royal Purple and just continue them as normal.

I'd wanna rebuild it at sorta over 200 anyway.

[ebv8]

my olds 1991 pajero had 360,000km serviced every 5,000km from new and never blew smoke which is rare for a bitsashitty v6, so to me that prove changing to oil more often is better in the long run but do the mid service yourself to save money

[Alan D Segal]

I'm not going to comment on this, but I've voted and I'm interested to see everyone else's comments. Great thread OP.

[strobe]

I probably wouldn't even bother servicing your car. My car however...

[Trump]

^ Hat is tipped, I snorted

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by ebv8

my olds 1991 pajero had 360,000km serviced every 5,000km from new and never blew smoke which is rare for a bitsashitty v6, so to me that prove changing to oil more often is better in the long run but do the mid service yourself to save money

I like this post the best so far but we need lots more feedback as at present the poll is split 50/50 right down the middle.

For what its worth the cost price of 8.5 litres of Castrol Edge 5W-20, (the recommended oil for SC FPV's) for me sourcing it the cheapest way I can is $140 Kiwi so with filter and even doing it myself comes to $153. Expensive No, of material benifet to longevity considering I only do about 7,500 km's per annum ????

[GTP owner]

i am going to say a waste of time and money. The money bit does not worry me, but i don't have time to stuff around with servicing a car so often. All of my cars last well over 200,000km and i have never had one use a drop of oil in between services, which to me indicates the rings and bearings are doing just fine. Even my xr6t that has lived a hard life still does not require me to check or add any oil between services.

[jpblue1000]

I voted waste of money then read the replies. Changing the oil and filter is far from servicing the car, Servicing to me means adjustments, top-ups, checking and of course replacement of consumables. Not just droping the oil and replacing filter.
For a daily Hack I declare its a waste of money to even just do the oil and filter, of course it cant hurt anything but the wallet, but with modern engines and oils I don't believe it matters.
A performance engine used to its full potential is a different matter. My race car gets an full all car oil change every event, which equates to every 2-300km's new brake fluid as well. a road car probably would be Ok with manufacturer determined intervals but if you give it some then more often might be worthwhile but a modern Turbo engine used a s a daily hack doesnt constitute performance.

JP

[supershifty]

I drop the oil + filter every 10K - NA XH 6 bog stock that doesn't get driven hard. However if I had a performance engine again that I hit with a healthy bit of stick, I'd go with the 5k servicing regardless of the time interval.

[mik]

I do mine between 5000 and 7000 , as I keep my cars for years, I like to think it will pay off , my au I have had for 8+ years and it still pulls like a ............. train, I have always held firm to the belief keep the coolant up to date and the oil clean and it will go trouble free for years, ................touch wood(touches boof head).

[The Yeti]

I ticked a good thing

but in reality I never get around to it until 15k

the 38 gets done religiously every 2000km (no oil filter) and that seems to line up with the wifes territory doing between 12 - 15,000km so I do them both at the same time

[Trump]

Originally Posted by EF_6

Synthetic oils these days are highly advanced....I would service every 15,000 just like the manual says......Plus you are contributing to wasting all the Black Gold that is in the ground and becoming harder and harder to produce.

The reason the factory service interval is 15,000km is due to the larger sump capacity, not the use of better synthetic oils.

[GTP owner]

When i saw so many people saying they think it pays off in the long run, i thought i would do some maths.
xr6t, supposed service interval = 15,000km. Therefore 13 services. If you get the really good oil, do the inline filter for the turbo, and have to pay someone to do the service, you are up for say $180 per service, so that's $2,340

Then if you do it at 5,000km, that makes 4o services, at the same price, makes $7,200.

So that's $5,000 difference....which is the price of a full engine and turbo rebuild.....
And if you dont need to do the full turbo and engine rebuild.....it's a waste!

[poppa smurf]

10,000 Km's for me, oil still looks and feels "good"......but I'm not going to argue against those who service more regular.

[Peter B - CV8]

I believe that a full synthetic oil is good enough to last & provide protection for the vehicles normal service timeframe (& this is backed up a number of oil analysis results that have been posted up over the years).
Personally, I use a semi-synthetic oil & therefore change at half the manufacturers timeframe.

[Wolfinsheepsclothing]

I change mine every 5000k's which equates to about 6 months(I find cleaning bmc air filter about spot-on at this many k's also), now using liquid-moly 5w-20 full syn engine oil , but I love my car and spoil it rotten , I also am going to change diff oil at 20 000k intervals(penrite gear oil 80/140 syn)

[mik]

Originally Posted by GTP owner

When i saw so many people saying they think it pays off in the long run, i thought i would do some maths.
xr6t, supposed service interval = 15,000km. Therefore 13 services. If you get the really good oil, do the inline filter for the turbo, and have to pay someone to do the service, you are up for say $180 per service, so that's $2,340

Then if you do it at 5,000km, that makes 4o services, at the same price, makes $7,200.

So that's $5,000 difference....which is the price of a full engine and turbo rebuild.....
And if you dont need to do the full turbo and engine rebuild.....it's a waste!

That brings up the question how many blokes on here do their own stuff ?

[Giant Cranium]

if i did every 5000 id be in there every 6 weeks getting a service

[Ford_The_Win]

I putt around fairly casually so I'm happy to service every 10,000. My Mitsubishi was brand new and went to the dealer for servicing, and my FG is the same. Older vehicles not under warranty I'm happy to service myself.

[b055m4n]

Originally Posted by GTP owner

i am going to say a waste of time and money. The money bit does not worry me, but i don't have time to stuff around with servicing a car so often. All of my cars last well over 200,000km and i have never had one use a drop of oil in between services, which to me indicates the rings and bearings are doing just fine. Even my xr6t that has lived a hard life still does not require me to check or add any oil between services.

I totally agree with the quote above witch mirrors my experiences all exceeding 200,000km easily....but I wouldn't expect anything else from a Falcon ;)

[mcnews]

Mine are generally country kilometres so I think it would be quite wasteful to do 5000km changes and things. Only thing that would have me borderline deciding on doing 7500 or 10,000km changes on these things is how filthy the air filter gets etc due to the open nature of the airbox on the supercharged V8s, I know the filter should stop it all etc. but I still think that it is just too exposed.

[Raptor]

I voted 'Waste of Money', unless your engine is highly tuned and/or you drive like a maniac.

For the most part these engines are not high revving, state-of-the-art, tuned to within an inch of their life pieces of technology. They are designed for every day life and all environmental extremes from Perisher Valley in winter to Darwin in summer.

Metallurgy along with manufacturing methods mean tolerences are held far tighter than ever before leading to less wear and contamination and that's before you factor in advances in lubricants.

How long do you expect the engine to last anyway?

Australia's taxi fleets seem to get a decent life from their Falcon engines and I don't expect they change oil more frequently than advised by the mfg.

[Franco Cozzo]

I'm about 10,000km overdue for a service in my Focus, meh it still starts in the morning lol, it gets full synthetic so 20,000km of highway cruising probably wouldn't upset it too much.

[BENT_8]

Most service records have a section for extreme driving or conditions and provisions for additional servicing to suit.
Unless you were flogging the guts out of it or driving around in +45* temps I wouldn't bother with 5k servicing.

Having said that, I couldn't bring myself to leave it for 15k regardless of oil quality.

Something to remember is that oil can break down even in an idle engine due to contaminants present in fuel, air etc. within the engine.

If it were mine I would stay with the 7.5k or 12month scenario for peace of mind.

My2c.