My oil is 1 year and 125 days old, according to assyst plus telling me that I've exceeded the change by 125 days. The oil has 8,000 miles on it which is why I haven't taken the time yet to change it. I'm all about keeping my car perfectly serviced, but I just feel like even though Mercedes says change the oil every 10,000 miles or 1 year, that at 1 year and 125 days but only 8,000 miles, it would be a little bit of a waste to change it. I'm planning on it soon but I'd like to get at least 1000 more miles out of it.

What do you guys think? Does Mobil 1 0w40 go to sh** after a year or is mercedes' time interval a little overkill?

 

LSA,

I understand that there is always a safety margin built into servicing timings .

That said, if you are really interested in "keeping my car perfectly serviced " ,going over the service recommended time by 34% ie 125 days & now another 1000 miles say 50% is a contradiction, in my opinion.

You will very probably have no adverse effects but I would not do it if I were planning to keep the car long term. It will not look too flash on the service record either when you come to sell.

If you are also not inspecting your safety items, steering boots , suspension dampers for leaks ,brakes & fluid levels over this long period you may come unstuck.

People more knowledgeable than I hopefully will go into the details of contaminants & chemical longevity factors.

 

LSA ~ it's quite safe for you to go to 10K on the oil with the following caveat.

That the car gets a long run fully warmed up fairly often. My CLK has only done 30K Km's in 4.5 years so I do the annual change religiously as mine is a town car & on Mobilodrive plan.

Water is a by-product of combustion. If a car does a lot of 20 or 30 Km trips only from a cold start the water level in the oil can get up to between 7 & 10%. Water is a lousy lubricant.

As JC says annual safety checks on the car are a good idea. Where I come from not servicing the car to the book also ruins resale value. Benz vehicles retain value very well in SA unlike the US.

 

I only drive mine about 6,000 miles a year. I get my oil changed yearly rather than going the full 10,000 just to be safe. I'd have to drive almost two years to reach the 10,000 mark. Better safe than sorry

 

An oil change is cheap insurance. I don't see paying what we pay to drive a Mercedes and then skimping on maintenance. I change mine every 6,000 or so miles personally - overkill on the other end but it provides peace of mind.

 

I agree with both of you. I don't get the mindset of buying a premium product, and then trying to save relative pennies on maintenance. With that motivation, one may as well start off in a Toyota.

 

Im with you guys. Doesnt make sense to me to drive a $ 40,000 + dollar car and worry about saving $ 100 for oil change.

Id bet the Mobil 1 or any quality syn oil will go a lot longer than the 10,000 miles or 1 year but there are a lot of other factors to consider - condensation, water build up if you are a low mileage driver and contaminates sitting in the engine for long periods of time. Also to me the act of a Service A (oil/filter change) is the inspection that is performed along with the service, those are the things that need to be checked yearly or every 10,000 miles

 

FWIW just do an oil/filter change. It has been proven that synthetic oil with a quality filter can go for a lot longer but that's probably under perfect conditions. I only drive about 13,000 kms a year but it's 90% highway so I'll be doing once a year oil/filter changes. There are 3 major items that aren't worth skimping on a car and that would be oil/filter, brakes and tires.

 

My Dad worked on developing Mobil 1 and always said change it at 25,000 miles or one year, whichever came first.

 

Mobil 1 is a very fine product but let's not think of 25,000 miles. Endless sample analysis in the M272 engines with fleece filter shows it's starting to get tired at 13,000 miles. It has usually sheared out of grade by this time & is fairly contaminated.

 

Mobil 1 ain't what it used to be. Most people I know wont use it any more. Just sayin'.

 

That is a nonesense old wives tail from sites like Bobistheoilguy.

Mobil 1 0W-40 Eurograde as approved by Benz is every bit as good as it has always been. Base oils have changed but in no way lessen the performance of the Benz product.