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

[JeremyVineyard]

At least that's what I'm doing now that I WFH virtually full time.
Anyone else doing this?

YABU = Cars must be serviced every year!
YANBU = A service every two years is fine if you're only driving 5k per year.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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…

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

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

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.

Less use = more services, not less...

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 🤔

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.

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.

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.