Americans seem to love checking and replacing their oil.
They have whole retail chains devoted to it, when everyone I know in Europe gets it replaced once a year at their annual dealer service, with no checking in between.
Those retail chains will actually do the full periodic servicing that a dealer would. We just refer to that service generically as an “oil change”. And we get that service based on mileage rather than annually.
Also, all Europeans go back to the dealership for periodic maintenance? There are no independent shops that do this? Nobody does it themselves? So if you have a BMW you have to take it to the BMW dealer in particular? Sounds like lock-in to me.
I’m sure in principle there are many forms of periodic maintenance that need to be done for a car. You’re also supposed to drain your hot water tank every 6-12 months. But getting the oil changed (and the air filters and whatnot) seems to be the important bit.
But there’s multiple competing BMW dealers. You can shop around. If you go somewhere other than a dealer where do they get the training, parts, diagnostic codes to work on your car?
https://www.kba.de/DE/Statistik/Kraftverkehr/VerkehrKilomete...
In EU modern engines with modern oil are (of course it depends) more like to need an oil change every 20.000 kms or more, in practice once per year (and this is a good idea anyway, besides mileage).
Old relevant posts:
We have the same oils you have. The same bottle of oil on the shelf here often meets the requirements of both API and ACEA.
But still, the average American drives more than 20,000km per year. The average American male age 35-54 drives 30,000km per year. Most people today are not changing their oil on a whim, they are doing it when their vehicle's maintenance reminder tells them it is time to do so.
My hybrid Toyota tells me it's about time to change my oil about every 12000km
As the sibling comment said, oil changes are (mostly) distance based although, arguably, various commercial interests suggest oil changes more frequently than they are needed. But, if you drive 15,000 miles a year (as is common in the US), you probably want to change your oil more than once a year in any case.