kmchow

This has got to be the most commonly debated topic in every car forum? My parents picked up their '03 C240 automatic back in Aug/03. It's now Feb/04. So 7 months have past. My parents have only put about 5K on the car. So far, the MB computer is recommending 11K service interval. That will take my parents about 1-1.5 years to reach that service level.

So would you go for Service A in Feb/04. If not service A, would you go for even a simple oil change?

I'm assuming "regular" C240s still run on dino oil and not synthetic???

What would you do?
I'm thinking changing oil 2X/year is reasonable, for city driving??

The MB advisor recommends strictly following the computer which would mean we would wait until the 11K are up? Thanks ahead.

mleskovar

C240s use synthetic oil.....

revstriker

It has synthetic oil.

Assuming you are in the US where Service is included (free), I would wait until the FSS says that it's time. If you service or change your oil before then, it's out of your pocket, and a waste IMO.

I've had my car for a little over 2 years. I just had Service B done a couple of weeks ago. No problems what so ever.

kmchow

It made logical sense that if MB were offering such long oil change intervals, they would be using synthetic oils. OTOH, I would have only expected the AMG class cars to be using such fancy oil?

OTOH, even Accords these days are running on synthetic!

Unfortunately, since we're in Canada, MB has eliminated their free maintenance coverage. We instead get TWO years of free replacement on wear/tear parts like light bulbs/wiper blades and brake pads!!! How many of those could I go through!!! Bless their souls at MB Canada.

jrct9454

-All MBs are filled with synthetic oil at the factory; this has been true for some time now.

-Our '02 C240 averages only about 8k miles a year. It was produced in Bremen on Jan 9, 2002, but was not put on the road until sold to us in Sept 2002. It too had the FSS calling for the A Service between 11-12k miles...until mid-December '03, when the FSS started counting down [30 days, 15 days, etc.] to an A Service date of Jan 9, 2004.

So, the FSS will shift to a time-based service recommendation if the time from the last reset gets to 2 years. We had the service done on Jan 14 with about 9400 miles on the car. I don't plan any services outside the FSS and factory recommendations. One note about that: I had the service rep check with MBUSA to get the brake fluid replacement authorized with our A service last month, because it calls for 2 year-replacement intervals, and though our car had only been on the road for about 15 months, it had all of the original fluids from the production date of two years ago. No arguments from NJ on this one.

-I did have the oil changed once on my dime at 3000 miles, but only because I had 8 qts of synthetic sitting around the garage that were not getting any younger [left over from servicing the Toyota that this car replaced].

Sincity

Aren't brakes also covered in the US? They were for my old BMW.

GDawgC220

Nope...brakes aren't covered under MB warranty. Blades are now tho but they weren't use to be. Maybe MB will change their minds and let brakes under warranty too.