Oil Change (1 Viewer)

Jul 13, 2011
287
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Stoney Stanton
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I have a Pilote G600 on Fiat 2.3 130 bhp base, is it recommended to have an oil & filter change between major services please?
 

MikeD

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Dec 21, 2011
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I think it is dependent on the year of the van but my 2016 requires a service once every two years. It dwill of course alter on mileage but at 11k miles it is just now due for oil and filters.

Fiat professional have not said to be it needs a oil and filter change at one year. The standard service interval is two years or 30k miles.

Now wait to be shot at - £50k+ for a motorhome but skimps on servicing etc.

But if Fiat say it only needs a service every two years or 30k miles then that is ok with me.
 

jollyrodger

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Oct 1, 2012
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For the cost of an oil & filter change against the cost of repairs on a worn or damaged engine I'd go for the intermediate change .
Personally I do a change every 5000ml on engine and annually on the gearbox .
1.9td Citroen (2000)
Also when I first got the van (2nd hand) I treated with Active 8
Just my own take on my van .

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Last edited:
Oct 7, 2013
5,867
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Regardless of service intervals we always do a flush, oil and filter change after between 1000 and 15000 miles on a new vehicle.

Additional oil and filter change annually before a long tour.

Our annual mileage is between 10k and 12k depending on where our main tour of the year takes us.
 
Feb 9, 2008
4,086
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I have an oil and filter change annually, we do 6k miles a year in our Fiat based motorhome (2008).
 
OP
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Petros
Jul 13, 2011
287
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Stoney Stanton
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Thanks I will go for the interim service then, good advice

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Feb 9, 2008
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Lots of old boys on here do oil changes every year because that's what they used to do 20 years ago and keeps them in their comfort zone I guess. Modern engines and oils are a different kettle of fish altogether and these days you do not even have to check your oil level as you will be informed by warning lights etc., if there is a need to take action. Follow the service manual that came with your vehicle. The people who designed, built and tested the engine will know far more about it's servicing needs than anyone on here. My 2011 Fiat 2.3 engine did not need its first service until it had completed 30,000 miles or reached 2 years whichever came first. Why would you disregard the manufacturers advice ?
 

MikeD

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I wonder - would you change the cam belt, tyres, anti freeze and brake fluid at their half life?
 

jollyrodger

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Oct 1, 2012
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I wonder - would you change the cam belt, tyres, anti freeze and brake fluid at their half life?


Not in My ownership ,but irrespective of what the book or service history says, any pre-owned vehicles I've owned or had when trading got the full works cambelt, oils ,prior to use or selling on ,then that was peace of mind for me or the customer, because I will know it's been done and not skimped prior to being sold to me.
What other people do is entirely up to them,and as @PhilandMena says back in the day of the old duckems green recycled etc, if it weren't done regular you had probs ,old habits .....and all that (y)
 
Oct 7, 2013
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The manual says one thing.

If owners feel more comfortable changing more often then so be it. More engines have been wrecked by not being serviced than by being over serviced.

Our servicing is done by a friend, a proper qualified mechanic, not a fitter. His advice is to change the oil and filter within 1500 miles of being new, in order to remove any swarf in the oil.

After that his major comment is that the manual gives maximum mileage. Stick to that if you like. If it makes you feel more confident then change oil/filter more often. It’s a matter of personal choice. The cost, compared to the cost of the motorhome, or a new engine, is negligible.

We change oil/filter each year at about 10k to 12k using semi-synthetic oil, the recommended one. Following his advice means we have never had any engine problems. (Although I wish I hadn’t said that now)!:confused:
 

The Nomad

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Lots of old boys on here do oil changes every year because that's what they used to do 20 years ago and keeps them in their comfort zone I guess. Modern engines and oils are a different kettle of fish altogether and these days you do not even have to check your oil level as you will be informed by warning lights etc., if there is a need to take action. Follow the service manual that came with your vehicle. The people who designed, built and tested the engine will know far more about it's servicing needs than anyone on here. My 2011 Fiat 2.3 engine did not need its first service until it had completed 30,000 miles or reached 2 years whichever came first. Why would you disregard the manufacturers advice ?


Correct.
Non engineers or those who got their trade in the 60s and 70s do need to recalibrate their understanding of modern oils.
The reason in the old days was because the mineral oils that were used then broke down and went out of spec.
Modern semi synthetic stay within spec for much much longer under the pressures of compression; and fully synthetic oils remain within spec for much longer again.
It is not that synthetic oils are "better" than semi, which is "better" than mineral oil of the same spec out of the can per se. It is that they continue to perform their lubricating job within that same technical specification for much much longer.
Ergo oil changes can be much, much further apart nowadays.

Almost always with motorhomers, that only get driven for a tiny fraction of the annual starship mileage that the Base van design engineers expect white vans to be thrashed for each month, it is time that decides when a precautionary oil change could usefully be done.
But even that (say 2 years) errs hugely on the side of caution on a van only being driven perhaps 5 to 8k per year.
In the commercial world these exact same vehicles get thrashed for literally ten times more than that per year, and each mile is driven really hard.
They are very very very resilient pieces of mechanical engineering. And synthetic oils are nothing like what the old mineral oils used to be like.

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Lenny HB

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Oct 18, 2007
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Change ours at 2 years, no problem at all with modern semi-synthetic oils on our 3rd Ducato never been a problem the latest one uses fully synthetic oil even better. Long gone are the days of 5 miles after an oil change the oil was as black as soot, with the better oils and better manufacturing tolerances if you dip the oil after a few thousand miles it still looks golden like petrol engines do.
 
Jul 5, 2013
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Change ours at 2 years, no problem at all with modern semi-synthetic oils on our 3rd Ducato never been a problem the latest one uses fully synthetic oil even better. Long gone are the days of 5 miles after an oil change the oil was as black as soot, with the better oils and better manufacturing tolerances if you dip the oil after a few thousand miles it still looks golden like petrol engines do.
Agree with Lenny again (this is getting a bad habit :().

Don't often look at the dip stick on our 2015 3litre Fiat based Hymer, because we have a display on the dashboard. But did so about 20 months after we got it and when we were approaching 18,000 miles and the oil looked like new, with little or no discolouration. I am sticking to Fiat's recommendations on servicing.

We just had our first service according to Fiat, 2 years or every 30 k miles. It was 2 years and only 12k miles.
Phil
Only 12k. You are not getting out enough Phil. :D2

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Apr 12, 2010
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Agree with Lenny again (this is getting a bad habit :().

Don't often look at the dip stick on our 2015 3litre Fiat based Hymer, because we have a display on the dashboard. But did so about 20 months after we got it and when we were approaching 18,000 miles and the oil looked like new, with little or no discolouration. I am sticking to Fiat's recommendations on servicing.


Only 12k. You are not getting out enough Phil. :D2
We are getting out enough but not always in the MH. USA,Carribean, NZ,OZ, etc.We need to try and put that right. Phil
 

Deneb

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Oct 20, 2015
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Well, this is what Fiat say:

If the vehicle is mostly used in one of the following conditions:

- towing a trailer or caravan
- dusty roads
- short, repeated journeys (less than 7-8 km) at sub-zero temperatures
- engine often idling or driving long distances at low speeds or long periods of inactivity

the following checks must be carried out more often than indicated in the scheduled servicing plan.

[...]
- check and, if necessary, change engine oil and replace filter
[...]

(My emphasis, but these are conditions which most obviously replicate a lot of people's motorhome use.)

Long oil change intervals are designed to appeal to business and fleet buyers who place importance on maintenance costs during ownership, and who are likely to only keep vehicles for relatively short periods before disposal.

If modern oil is so wonderful, why did a premium car manufacturer whose vehicles are used by emergency services circulate a bulletin after a series of catastrophic engine failures indicating that the specified oil could not cope with the conditions under which the vehicles were being used, and recommend changing to a more traditional, higher viscosity oil?

The only reason for the change from 5W30 in Euro 5 to 0W30 in Euro 6 Ducatos is to (marginally) improve emissions, apparently at the expense of overall consumption.

So my decision is that I will change the oil and filter annually, as I have always done (y)

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