Scooby24
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Greg
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2021
- Threads
- 24
- Messages
- 1,897
- Reaction score
- 2,871
- Location
- Olathe, KS
- Vehicles
- '21 MME-GT Star White; '22 MME Prem AWD DGM
- Occupation
- Perioperative Revenue Manager
- Thread starter
- #16
The motivation of specifying a longer than optimal maintenance interval would be reduced cost to the Manufacturers that are paying maintenance plans like BMW. The benefit is also reducing the "cost of ownership" metric which IS being considered by buyers. A stereotype of being expensive to maintain is a big issue with some OEMs and has led to a major shift in their maintenance recommendations.Ha, I'm probably as skeptical as anyone you'll ever meet. I question everything. It comes down to motivation.
What motivation is there to specify an incorrect - especially a too-long - maintenance interval? Who would benefit from that? Oil and filter manufacturers, Jiffy Lube, etc., would be the main beneficiaries. Long-term, not the auto manufacturers.
Does this not seem a logical or plausible benefit to the manufacturers?
My first counter to this statement would be Manufacturers consist of a whole more than engineers. They WILL go against their engineers' optimal recommendations if they deem a cost benefit worthy of overriding "optimal" in lieu of "profitable" within a margin of acceptability.And, no offense to you, but I'll trust engineers on this, rather than techs. The engineers are working with current data and test results, while techs are working with anecdotal evidence and opinion, which is often outdated.
To illustrate the point, here's a difference of ZF, the manufacturer of BMW's transmissions in my vehicles, recommending an interval 50k miles sooner than BMW. I am interested in hearing your opinion on this.
https://blog.fcpeuro.com/bmw-lifetime-transmission-fluid-isnt-lifetimeZF 6HP & 8HP Automatic Transmissions
Here at FCP Euro, we have an extremely close relationship with ZF, who is the supplier of 6HP and 8HP transmissions to BMW. BMW rates these transmissions for a "lifetime fill," however, through our channels at ZF and speaking with the engineers of those transmissions, we've learned that the transmissions are tested to 100,000 miles with an "acceptable rate of failure" on the original fill. 100,000 miles is BMW's definition of what a "lifetime fill" and that's passed the extended warranty and "good-will" repair limit, meaning a failure after that is no longer BMW's responsibility. In the case of the 6HP/8HP, ZF actually has a published service interval for those transmissions which completely contradicts BMW's service information with an interval of 8 years/80,000km (~50,000 miles). This information supersedes BMW's "lifetime fill" rating.
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