First Oil & Tranny Service at 1300 miles

[fielddominance]

Just did my First Oil & Tranny Service at 1300 miles! Thats the love I have for my Cabrio!! However, I did do it at the dealer and I am a little upset at the cost. Definitely not inline with the whole "Smart" concept. I don't think I have ever spent more than $80 at Toyota for the same service & class of car.

That being said I will not dog them on this forum because they are first rate guys and deserve for me to bring it up to management. I will let you know how it goes.

[Karl Roth]

Originally Posted by fielddominance

Just did my First Oil & Tranny Service at 1300 miles! Thats the love I have for my Cabrio!! However, I did do it at the dealer and I am a little upset at the cost. Definitely not inline with the whole "Smart" concept. I don't think I have ever spent more than $80 at Toyota for the same service & class of car.

That being said I will not dog them on this forum because they are first rate guys and deserve for me to bring it up to management. I will let you know how it goes.

Why did you feel the need to spend your hard earned cash for this?
karl

[saskdiesel]

Money well spent, excpet it cost lots more when you pay someone else to do it for you.
I am old school when it comes to this and I change oil very early on any new engine I've ever built or bought.

[kitttie]

My understanding is that Mercedes labor rates are quite high. I am very fortunate to have a life long mechanic that I know I can trust. Those folks will do any work on my car that is not warranty work. This is actually the same routine I have with every car I've ever owned. I never go to the dealer unless it's warranty work or a recall. Once in very long while I have something really small that needs to be dealt with, those rare instances I will go to the dealer, as my mechanic is a half hour drive away. It doesn't make sense to drive that far to replace a bulb in one of my rear lights, when the Toyota dealer is right around the corner from where I live...

My Smart dealer to be is roughly the same amount of driving time as it is to my mechanic, but I expect to follow the same routine that I have with my Toyota now.

[unicycle]

Originally Posted by saskdiesel

Money well spent, except ...

except that the company suggests a first oil change at 10,000 miles. I'm sure that you didn't hurt your car by wasting money on an early oil/service, but that doesn't mean you helped it much, either.

My car has 6500+ miles on it (in 2 months of heavy commuting) and drives beautifully. My only service for it has been a weekly car wash, administered by me.

[saskdiesel]

Originally Posted by unicycle

except that the company suggests a first oil change at 10,000 miles. I'm sure that you didn't hurt your car by wasting money on an early oil/service, but that doesn't mean you helped it much, either.

My car has 6500+ miles on it (in 2 months of heavy commuting) and drives beautifully. My only service for it has been a weekly car wash, administered by me.

Honda wants me to drive 7500-10000 miles before I change oil on our new Fit. No thanks. I want all the manufacturing particulate out of there as soon as possible. There is no benefit to not changing the oil soon.
That oil is getting changed at 1500km or so.
I believe Smart also recommends never changing the trans oil.
As a mechanic I would say this is bad advice.

[fielddominance]

Real Old School!!! Proper break-in and flushing the freshly machined parts of debris, shavings & metallic particles was what we were taught back in the days. Believe me that fighting with my service advisors at Mercedes is a pain and when I leased I did not give a s^&t... but my trend in the past decade has been to own until failure!! I have found that minimal preventative maintenance pays off.

Does Merc and/or Smart run the engines for 100 hrs and flush???

Originally Posted by Karl Roth

Why did you feel the need to spend your hard earned cash for this?
karl

[Old smart]

I think marketing has much to do with smart the maintenance schedule and recommendations as mechanics.

[Karl Roth]

Originally Posted by saskdiesel

Honda wants me to drive 7500-10000 miles before I change oil on our new Fit. No thanks. I want all the manufacturing particulate out of there as soon as possible. There is no benefit to not changing the oil soon.
That oil is getting changed at 1500km or so.
I believe Smart also recommends never changing the trans oil.
As a mechanic I would say this is bad advice.

Yea what do they know, they just built it and swept the foor every night and put it in your motor
karl

[fielddominance]

C'mon!!! We all know they calculate everything and that they design obsolescence into every product and "Not" changing the oil could be just another calculation in the overall marketing/warranty/lifespan of the equation.