That's always the problem with this sort of discussion. The participants range from the likes of Terry who does the same number of k's and the same sort of driving (i.e. long highway trips mixed with everyday driving) as most of us do in our BV's, to others who drive them to work everyday, others still who bring them out on warm weekends and those sad people who might rack up 100k or less per year
.
Those in the first two categories would (or should) obviously stick to regular km based services like we all should with our everyday drivers. The last two categories however (the bulk of us I think) would be better served by a time based schedule IMO. Brett's routine sounds good to me for those of us who aren't doing many k's and I plan to do something along those lines.
Mind you, if I plan on a big multi day run (and I plan to do a few of those
) I wouldn't be shy in changing it just before going if the 6 months wasn't quite up. If it was a big enough run or in hot and/or dusty conditions (again quite likely
) It may even be worth changing when I got home. As others have said, it's cheap and easy insurance.
Having had a bad run on rebuilding engines in work utes over the past few years, I'm happy to change oil and filters every 5,000km rather than 10,000 as recommended as this works out to about every 3 months on my main ute and every 6 months on the other one. They work pretty hard at times, so this is a good interval for a once over.
Takes half an hour or so including time to check grease nipples and general underbody condition and costs me about $125 for the Landcruiser as it takes 10L of oil. Costs to rebuild it would go close to 5 figures though, so money well spent I think. On a Moke, it costs bugger all and is just as important considering the age of the car to check all the underneath bits on a regular basis.
Newie