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Comment by buserror | Hacker News Reader

It's all a US ploy to make you spend money. In europe nobody changes their oil every year it's absolutely bonkers when I read that. My new BMW X5 manufacturer first service is set at 18000 miles that's likely 2+ years of ownership! I also have a petrol Z3 and I change the oil every 5 years maybe. It still is 24 years old and goes like clappers. And last time I changed the oil, the old one looked absolutely fine.

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Is it true that luxury (or any) car manufacturers extend their oil-change periods so that the engine wears out earlier and their customers will replace their cars sooner. So, BMW wants you to replace your car every x miles (eg 100K miles) - whereas the mechanism can last way longer (300K miles) if maintained better.

the car maker has an inherent incentive to reduce the lifespan of the vehicle which conflicts with the customer's incentive to extend the lifespan.

This just sounds like you don't drive much.

I easily cover 10-15k miles a year as a Brit. Changing the oil in my car every 50,000-75,000 miles ("5 years maybe") would be totally ridiculous. In many vehicles you're looking at things like timing belt changes in that time frame, you've replaced the tyres multiple times, etc.

> first service is set at 18000 miles that's likely 2+ years of ownership!

An American commuter will hit that in a year easy.

I doubt it.

https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-dri...

> The average miles driven per year by Americans has now reached a total of 14,263 miles.

And I bet this is a mean average, so is skewed higher by people who drive a lot. If I were to guess, the vast majority of personal vehicles stay under 10k miles per year.

Women and retired people especially, who usually have their own vehicle:

> Men drive around 6,000 miles per year more than women on average, and after retirement drivers post around 30 percent fewer miles per year.

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