Simons Has anyone ever done servicing at Voldat Morrabbin?
Why do they recommend servicing every 6 months or 5000km?
Because they figure changing the oil is better than changing the engine, and they're presuming that you care about the vehicle.
Unfortunately, marketing droids and sales twats are increasingly dictating the vehicle servicing and engineering policy instead of engineers. They want to win sales on new units on the basis that they don't need to be serviced as often as the competition. Take the factory recommended oil change interval on GM's HFV6 for example - to cut down projected fleet servicing costs, the marketing morons specified an oil change interval which was far too long and inappropriate. Which is why so many of these engines coked up, killed the oil supply to the timing chains which stretched, and died prematurely.
Volvo's idiotic 'Sealed For Life' mantra is another example of this stupidity. It's the reason why you see so many cheap cars for sale with TF80SC transmissions, since Volvo told everybody that the gearbox oil never needed changing "for the like of the vehicle". Well, that 'life' ends up being a lot shorter than it should be, because the dirty old lubricant does a lot of damage to the close tolerance components, causing premature wear and eventual failure. But stealers don't care, they want to flog your fleet their new cars in 2 years. Or at the end of your novated lease. Different story to us private owners.
Haldex, angle gear, and transmission fluid MUST be changed and flushed every 50,000 kays. Tops. If you care about the vehicle.
Modern engines run hotter, burn leaner with higher compression, and are thus more highly stressed than donks of old. So more pressure is placed upon the lubricants inside them. Oil turns to sludge under extreme operating conditions. So it makes sense to me to change oil every 6 months or 5K km, because clean lube is less likely to cause premature wear.
Thumbs up to VolDat for recommending a sensible servicing schedule.
