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Time For A Service?


Cunning Stunt
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Hi guys

I have done around 13-14k miles on my oil currently in the engine and have noticed a significant loss in power recently.

It could be that I bust my drive shaft about 9 weeks ago and had to have it replaced with one from the scrappies (which now makes a lot more noise at certain speeds than before) or that the oil is getting rather thick and horrible and that it needs replaced.

Anyone able to clarify this?

I was thinking about getting it done in the next few weeks (after payday) or should I look to get it done ASAP?

Cheers

Liam

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Hi Liam,

It depends on several factors:

1) how much mileage are you doing

2) how hot is the engine getting on each run.

If your doing a few miles, and the oil is barely warming up then get it done sooner, if your doing more miles and the engine is warming up you should be alright for a few weeks.

3) how good condition the drive shaft is that you replaced yours with. If its leaky or sticky then you will find yourself in a gamble situation where you could either sheer this one as well, or if it seizes in the wrong place, have it backfire on the engine.

4) how are you planning on changing the oil?

I would advise this: if you can do it for less than £40 yourself - do it yourself, replace the filter, drain and refill the fuel. However, if you cant / cant be bothered (trust me I was guilt of that - bear it in mind for what I am about to say). You could always take it to Kwik Fit - now whilst I wouldnt really trust kwik fit to do more than fit a tyre (and even that would be pushing the boundaries of my trust).

But, they did a full oil and filter change, along with brake fluid change on my 1.6 TDCi CMAX for about £44! now, I watched them do the job (making sure they werent just topping it up) and my local kwik fit did a full and thorough drain, replaced the filter and refilled with the right juice. The only thing I didnt fully watch them do was replace the brake fluid (but it appears they did). and for £44 - I hate to say it - but its actually a very good value service and one that I would happily do again! oil alone can cost the best part of £20-£30 for the full amount, then your looking at the filter - £7+ and then your looking at the effort of disposing of said oil. Although you could do the job for less than that, sometimes its easier to pay a bit more, sit down with a coffee and watch some other begger do the job!

Now, one thing I will advise - they overfilled my oil, after a couple of days I checked it to ensure it was settling, and it was a tad more than the max mark (which probably correlates to a tad more than a quarter to a half litre more than they should have put in. I will give them their dues, I drove it back, told them, and they drained it and it sat around the 80-90% mark (maybe 1mm off the top of the dipsticks max line).

Easy fix, and no effort required!

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The service interval is 12.5k miles so its well overdue. Changing the engine oil regularly is the single most important factor regarding your engine's (and therefore your car's) longevity.

Also, when you changed the driveshaft, did you lose any gearbox oil?

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and 12.5k is regular?

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12.5k is the designated manual transmission service interval for the UK generally.

I think it depends if you have the money to do the job now or not, but I would say dont push it beyond 500 miles or 1 month, if your already finding its late and misbehaving, I really would try get it done sooner, or limit its use until you can get it done.

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if it were me, i deffo half that millage.... ford oil, n filter only cost 33 anyway

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It was my mechanic that does my services and stuff.

I do 100 miles a day all on the motorway and I don't tend to do much more than 65mph (hate wasting diesel) so I don't think i'm running the engine particularly hard.

Yeah I think I will wait 2 weeks til I'm paid and go get it done by my mechanic. He's a good guy and has done my dads cars for the best part of 20 years without issue so I cant imagine he will have done a shady job.

Its only between 30-45mph the additional noise, kind of like a vibrating noise but outside that range its just the same as the old one. I'll let him know when I hand it in for a service see if he can work anything out.

Cheers

Liam

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if it were me, i deffo half that millage.... ford oil, n filter only cost 33 anyway

I used to be like that. I'm an engineer, I work on gas turbine engines and I know the value of good clean oil in an engine. 15 year ago, when I got my first Focus, I changed the oil in between services like you do, however I sold the car with only 80k miles on the clock so it wasn't me that got the benefit of the extra oil changes, it was the guy who bought it from me. So with my current Focus, I stuck to recommended 12.5k interval and almost nine years and 132k miles later, its fine. It doesn't usually get used for short trips and it does a round trip commute of 70 miles a day.

My wife's new Fiesta on the other hand is used for shorter trips and despite being almost one year old, its barely done 5k miles. It will have a service at the one year point regardless of mileage.

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