oliverhayes
New member
My Mini is my daily driver and I do mostly short city trips, lots of stop start, rarely getting the engine fully warm. The dealer told me to just follow the onboard service indicator, which sometimes stretches close to 15,000 km between changes, but a couple of people I've spoken to say that's way too long especially for short trip driving and I should be changing every 5,000 to 7,000 km instead. Now I'm stuck because I don't want to waste money on unnecessary changes but I also don't want to be slowly killing the engine by following a schedule designed for ideal conditions. I've had the car from new and it's been serviced at the dealer so far, so the history is clean, but I'm starting to question whether their intervals are actually good for the car or just convenient for them. I was told to see this Mini Cooper repair page for guidance on servicing, which got me thinking about switching to a specialist who might give more honest advice. My questions are whether short trip driving really justifies halving the interval, what oil these engines actually prefer, and whether the onboard indicator accounts for driving style or just mileage. Anyone here with a high mileage Mini who can share what worked for them?