BMW 118d very short between service indicator info

[Rotty]

Wife's car had a service in Jan at a local indie

It now shows service due next month or 1k miles after just 8 months and 5k miles

Now I know the intervals are variable and the car gets a huge amount of stop start town driving (she's a care worker) but surely that's not right, I thought average was 20k / 2 years

Can they really reduce by that much?

 

[Kenai]

20k 2yrs is absolute maximum, certainly not average, and would likely only be attained by gentle drivers who spend 95% of their life at 60mph on the motorway getting in everyone's way.

Constant short journeys, oil never getting to temperature etc. I would expect to reduce the interval significantly. 6k between services is very low but believable, especially if she drives the car relatively hard even though its probably never getting to temperature.

Other possibility is they didn't correctly reset the service schedule

 

[Rotty]

that's what I wonder, is there anything they could have reset incorrectly

while a lot of short journeys it never gets driven hard

 

[pepsilol]

Na certainly something wrong here. Did you check the reset after the service in January ?

 

[Rotty]

it had been reset but not sure what it was showing, I don't drive it much

 

[[TW]Fox]

Have you looked at what the car says is due? It's probably a different servicing element that wasn't done last time.

 

[Rotty]

ah thought the older ones were just for the service, is that something I can do myself?

 

[DereksDontRun]

when's the mot due?

Had my 1 series in for it's 2yr service and came out with the next service reminder only saying 1 year and not 2. so went digging and it was a reminder for the mot and not a service. (i think).

 

[Rotty]

Not until June

 

[Gaygle]

It's either something else needs doing, or the people who did the last service didn't reset/reset the MOT reminder one, not the service one.

 

[adolf hamster]

i'm with the others on this, it's either something that was near being flagged and they didn't check the computer for it (which seems legit for an indie, hell they could have done the actual work but not realised), or they've not re-set the counter.

my local never remembers to re-set the counter, but you can do it manually in most cases.

 

[Entai]

My Aunt has one and does less than 4k miles per year, never more than 15-20 miles max journey, usually only 3 or 4.

For the first few years she owned it the service indicator would say at least two sometimes three services per year, and my aunt asked if that was ok.

I thought not so asked BMW technical services, and they said yes if the car is never at temp, and never gets a good long run to clear things through, then service intervals can be that low.

Over the last year I have got into the habit of borrowing it once a month and giving it a good old Italian tune up, for 100-150 miles or so, service indicator has only come on once this year.

 

[Armageus]

Isn't there a service "menu" that you can cycle through? (On the Mini I had there was that showed individual dates for Oil, Inspection and Brake Fluid - and probably others - would expect a BMW to be similar)

https://www.bmw-service.co.uk/service_icons

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I had a mini, so like Armageus assume the BMWs are the same with multiple types. I just ignore the other halves BMW thats her issue

But one time after servicing I found it had applied an odd distance to the next service. IIRC it was supposed to go to about 18k which was around 18 month for me, but it went to around 6k miles after around a month.
No idea why, something not quite right I had assumed, I just went it and set the time and next service to what it should have been, less a month and 1000 miles. worked fine again from that point.
As they are editable its possible the indy somehow did this on this occasion.

I set some of the mini ones to like 2099, they can be a bit annoying with all the checks etc they want

 

[Joe T]

My Aunt has one and does less than 4k miles per year, never more than 15-20 miles max journey, usually only 3 or 4.

For the first few years she owned it the service indicator would say at least two sometimes three services per year, and my aunt asked if that was ok.

I thought not so asked BMW technical services, and they said yes if the car is never at temp, and never gets a good long run to clear things through, then service intervals can be that low.

This. The number of cold starts is a key input into the calculation for when a service is required.

 

[[TW]Fox]

This. The number of cold starts is a key input into the calculation for when a service is required.

It's actually based on fuel consumption, the theory being the more fuel used the more harsh the operating conditions.

However it's simply not possible to require another service of the same type so soon so j suspect in this case that it's counting down to a Vehicle Check service which is not done at the same time as an oil service generally.

 

[Rotty]

Over the last year I have got into the habit of borrowing it once a month and giving it a good old Italian tune up, for 100-150 miles or so, service indicator has only come on once this year.

it gets quite a few long airport runs

 

[Rotty]

Isn't there a service "menu" that you can cycle through? (On the Mini I had there was that showed individual dates for Oil, Inspection and Brake Fluid - and probably others - would expect a BMW to be similar)

https://www.bmw-service.co.uk/service_icons

cheers , will check

 

[Rotty]

It's actually based on fuel consumption, the theory being the more fuel used the more harsh the operating conditions.

However it's simply not possible to require another service of the same type so soon so j suspect in this case that it's counting down to a Vehicle Check service which is not done at the same time as an oil service generally.

sounds quite likely

 

[Joe T]

It's actually based on fuel consumption, the theory being the more fuel used the more harsh the operating conditions.

The BMW calculation must be far less sophisticated than the Vauxhall one then.