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Car Forum / BMW Cars / May 2007

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Service History

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scratchpocket@googlemail.com - 04 May 2007 01:45 GMT
Hi.  I hope someone on here can offer me some advice.

I have a 2001 Z3 which I've owned since mid-2005.  The car hasn't been
my daily driver and therefore has
quite low mileage (had done 20K miles when I bought it, and is now at
30K miles just under two years later).  Because of the low number of
miles and the type of driving I do, it still has two green service
indicators showing.  Well, it did until today.

Over the next few weeks, the car will be being used on a daily basis,
so even though I had two green lights left, I wanted to get the oil
changed so that I wasn't driving around on two year old oil.  I took
it to a local garage (not a BMW one) to have this done.  When I went
to pick it up this afternoon, they'd done the oil change, and told me
they'd also reset my "oil lights".  I wasn't sure what they meant at
first, but it quickly dawned on me that they'd reset the service
indicators.

So here's my problem - when I bought the car it had had it's first oil
service at around 9K miles, and its inspection 1 at the 20K miles
point (just before I bought it).  Both of these were carried out a the
BMW dealership.  I had intended to continue this trend (or at least
use an independent BMW garage) but I now have the problem of a car
that hasn't actually been serviced but has all its indicators lit.
I'd really like to salvage my car's service history as best I can out
of this.  I can see two possible solutions:

1.  Have the car properly serviced straight away, with the service
indicators being left as they now are.  The problem with this is that,
AIUI, when it's serviced they'll put the full set of x's in the
service book to show that it had all its indicators lit when the
service was carried out.  This is going to appear odd, as it'll look
like I managed to go from 20K miles to 30K miles without any of the
indicators going out.

2.  Have the garage that did the oil change record the mileage, and
the number of lights lit in the service book and stamp it, along with
an explanation that only the oil was changed and that the indicators
were mistakenly reset.  Then have a BMW garage do the oil service.
The mileages recorded will be virtually the same, which should
indicate that the proper service was carried out right after the
lights had been reset.

Has anyone any suggestions on the best way to go with this?  I should
also point out that I was considering trading the car in in a month or
so, and am wondering what impact this messing up of the service record
will have on the trade-in value.

TIA.
Floyd Rogers - 04 May 2007 02:52 GMT
> Has anyone any suggestions on the best way to go with this?  I should
> also point out that I was considering trading the car in in a month or
> so, and am wondering what impact this messing up of the service record
> will have on the trade-in value.

You have the receipts, don't you?  So no problem.

FloydR
Jeff Strickland - 04 May 2007 22:08 GMT
The Service Interval and the Oil Change Interval are separate. The oil
change place reset the oil change interval indicator. Drive happy ...

> Hi.  I hope someone on here can offer me some advice.
>
[quoted text clipped - 45 lines]
>
> TIA.
Tom K. - 05 May 2007 00:58 GMT
> The Service Interval and the Oil Change Interval are separate. The oil
> change place reset the oil change interval indicator. Drive happy ...

Jeff, I don't follow you here.  On my cars they were the same with one
readout on the dash: a series of lights on my Z3 and a mileage countdown on
both my E46 and Z4.  Every second (scheduled) oil change, the service is
called an "Inspection".  But they are both "services".

Tom K.
dizzy - 06 May 2007 06:18 GMT
>> The Service Interval and the Oil Change Interval are separate. The oil
>> change place reset the oil change interval indicator. Drive happy ...
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>both my E46 and Z4.  Every second (scheduled) oil change, the service is
>called an "Inspection".  But they are both "services".

Careful, or Jeffy might divide Z4/Z3 and, from that, conclude that the
Z4 needs more maintenance.  

Once, Jeffy divided 328/325, as if that had something to do with
engine torque.

*snork*
Jeff Strickland - 04 May 2007 22:09 GMT
I forgot, that old piece of crap has no value, you may as well dump it off
in my driveway and let me get rid of it for you ...

> Hi.  I hope someone on here can offer me some advice.
>
[quoted text clipped - 45 lines]
>
> TIA.
 
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