to think that if you only drive 4/5 thousand miles per year that you only need to service your car every 2 years?

My car is 16yrs old. I barely do 1k miles a year. I don't service it but I do get an oil change done with every other MOT because it must be like soup just sitting outside all day.

I can ask mine, via the menu, when it needs a service, or it tells me about 3000km which service is due. This was useful in the early days, as I was doing about 50,000km a year or 1000km a week.
I always have it serviced before its MOT. Last year it sailed through :-)
It also gets well looked after in the interim.

It depends on the car, some are on long service intervals of 2 years anyway - it massively varies. Time degrades some items just as much as use. When x months or y miles is mentioned as a service interval it’s always whichever comes first.

Mine isn't driven much anymore but still serviced every 12 months or so. But just oil and filter most recently. Next year will have a full service. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember being told that oil goes "off". Possibly just a mechanic up selling though 🤔

Less use = more services, not less...

Best to MOT it before the service then anything can be sorted during service. Also, you’d hate to pay for a service then have it fail the MOT on something that effectively writes off the car.

Every year, before the MOT. Still going strong after 18 years.

And thinking about it, the manufacturer put it on a 2 year interval when it came in for its 1st service

The only thing i get done according to the schedule is the timing belt as if that goes say goodbye to your engine.
and its not me on the 2 year service, its recommendation from the same garage ive used for the last 20 years.
not caused any issues with any of mine…

You should follow the manufacturer's guidelines - oil deteriorates overtime and failure to service the vehicle can lead to long term issues. A service also includes a health check.

You should also be aware that if you have an extended warranty this will require the vehicle to be serviced in line manufacturer guidelines and failure to do so will void any policy.

Cars are normally more likely to have problems if you don't use them enough

I do about 2k miles a year and get it serviced every year with the MOT as the oil still needs changing which is the main thing on a service.

Many cars are on 2 year intervals these days anyway so you’d probably get away with it but for the cost of an oil and filter you may as well get it done every 12 months.

@taxguru Okay I’ll take it as you didn’t mean it like that. But a service in the trade world is just changing the oil and filters. Most main dealers and some of the independents will also do a check which will check the state of the battery as part of checks therefore I can see now that’s what you meant. But the actual understanding of a service is just oil and filters. Everything else they do is peripheral checks usually because if your cynical like me is in order to see what more money they can get out of you.

Having said that I see we both fully agree on the importance of regular servicing.

I buy 1 year old cars outright and keep them till they start costing more in upkeep, I've had Honda Civics for decades, the last one before my current one I had for 17 years.
I get them serviced every year, major service every 3, I do about 8 to 9k a year. The service schedule is every 12k miles or 12 months, whichever comes first, so that's what I do.

It depends, short journeys are terrible for cars and therefore I’d service it per the manufacturer’s recommendation. However if you drive longer distances (30 minutes plus) infrequently, you’d probably get away with servicing only every two years.

It's "strange" because it's not what I said nor what I meant!

I alternate each year between an interim service and a full service. Probably do about 8000 miles a year, sometimes less considering we predominantly wfh.

Thats the sort of mileage we do.
Annual mot
serviced every 2 years
The garage uses long life oil which lasts 2 years
Spark plugs changed on mileage not time
pollen filter every 4 years
as for resale value, sure if its under warranty and few years old but at 6-7 years part-ex makes no difference to value at all unless say a high value sports car

How on earth do you come to the conclusion that not changing the oil degrades the battery?

That’s the strangest thing I’ve read in a very long time!

@KellySeveride

I do not understand why people do not realise that regular services are vital to keeping a car running smoothly.

They're usually the ones who decry any car over 3 years as being unreliable etc as justification for always having lease cars replaced every 3 years. Regular servicing is essential for keeping a car on the road for it's proper lifespan which is an average of 14 years the last statistics I saw!

My sister is one of them. She literally never services her cars. She buys old, never services them, but then constantly moans with the amount of times they let her down in a morning, breaks down, fails MOTs etc. She just doesn't "get" the idea that servicing helps stop them breaking down and makes them last longer!

You can probably get away with only changing the oil and oil/air filters every couple of years, but you could do with someone checking and filling the coolant, brake fluid, etc? You should also have breakdown coverage as not having a service may mean that the battery degrades without you realising it meaning you could find it won't start, probably at the worst time such as if you stall on a roundabout!! Certainly don't go more than 2 years without a full service including oil change and full checks.

We've always had our cars religiously serviced to schedule, we let the garage dictate what needs doing and what doesn't. We currently have a nearly new Volvo with ultra low mileage, and the Volvo dealership has been excellent in "tailoring" the annual services appropriate to the mileage yet still complying with warranty etc.

We also have a very old car (18 years!) which we take to a local private garage and the garage owner does the same for us - he bases it on the official service schedule, but will suggest leaving things and making a note to do it at the next service so that nothing gets forgotten. (We had it serviced to schedule at the dealership for the first 10 years but they closed down and we didn't want to have to travel nearly an hour to the next nearest dealer, hence trying the local private garage who've been brilliant).

Nope, I'd still recommend it every year.

It’s recommended every 12 months or 12000 miles which ever comes first, so if your only doing 5000 miles a year then it should be done once a year