Short service interval -should I worry?

[BrianTheSnail]

My R20 was new last Xmas. All through the summer the service diagnostic has been suggesting a service at round about 11-12,000 miles. Recently after we clocked 7,500 miles or so it dropped to about 10,000 and now at just over 8,300 it is suggesting a service is needed in 500 miles. In fact it seems to drop about 50 miles every day we use the van.

Oil is a little down but nothing serious (just over 1 block on the display). We don't drive crazily and much of the mileage is motorway.

Should I be concerned that the van needs it's first service after 9k and 10 months?

Brian

[Twolitre]

Your service indicator does sound suspect, but I imagine a driver's handbook came with a new vehicle. Your questions about service intervals should be answered in that. Specified service intervals vary from different manufacturers and even by model. And have increased over the years. When I was an apprentice motor mechanic most vehicles needed service every 1000 miles, or every month, which ever came first!
Not adhering to specified servicing could nullify the warranty on new vehicles. I would think your service indicator should be the subject of a warranty claim anyway.
Jim.

[ant]

Brian.
Don't worry about the service until the van is a year old. The service indicator measures how many times the engine has been started, how hot it got, and how far it travelled between starts. It then works out when you'll need a service based on the info' it gets on each trip. If you do lots of short trips you may only get a 6000 mile service suggestion, if you do only long trips you'll get nearer the 12500 mile interval. Just remember the vehicle was designed to do at least 12500 miles a year as a commercial vehicle so an annual service is what the manufacturer is trying to achieve.
Thanks
Ant

[BrianTheSnail]

Thanks Ant, and that explains exactly why the sudden changes too. The R20 is our only vehicle and, of course, now the weather is worsening we are using it far more for little runs to the local supermarket so <5 mile journeys. Trying not to use it for such short distances unless we need to (not just to reduce engine wear but walking is good for us)

How do I stand warranty-wise if I let it go past the service recommendation by a month? In some ways it might be good anyway to go for an 11 month service this time - tax, insurance and service all just a few days before Christmas isn't good and pushing out to January doesn't make it much better, we're still paying off the family Christmas then

If I take out 6 months road-tax this time then service in November, tax in December and annual road-fund in June spreads the load. Also it's my sister's birthday end of October and she lives just down in Wrington, so bringing it your way for a service means I can hand deliver birthday pressies.

Thanks for your help

[ant]

Brian.
Don't worry too much about your warranty and a month either side of the service due date. The days of the main dealer being able to refuse warranty because a below mileage vehicle has missed the annual service by a few weeks have gone. In the very unlikely event of you having to make a warranty claim it would have to be proved that by not having the oil and filter changed you'd caused the problem! _ it's not going to happen as most of the warranty claims I see are down to electronics failing and that often happens with no provable cause.
If you keep you vehicle well maintained with an annual service ensuring it has good quality oil and fuel and belts are changed a bit before the due date you'll have 300000 miles out of the engine.
Ant

[Artoo0]

R20 service after less than 4000 miles???

Hi Ant

I was about to start a new thread with this question, but thought I'd search first to see if the situation had come up before, and sure enough ... !

Our case seems even more extreme however.

Artoo0 was new last June, and has a current mileage of 3796 miles.
This morning, when I turned on the engine, the "Service Indicator" display came on, momentarily indicated 50 miles, and then changed to zero. This was a shock!

I clearly recall an indication of 4800 miles when setting off back from our Hogmanay jaunt to Aberdeenshire. I remarked at the time, that projected a service at about 8000 miles, which seemed low.

As I've reported previously, we don't have a Berlingo Owners Manual. Our supplier said this would come from Citroen. When it did, it was for a newer model and the correct one still hasn't turned up despite periodic chasing, so I'll be back on their case as soon as I've finished this post!
I have found what appears to be the appropriate manual on Citroen's website, but it makes no reference to this sort of problem.

We did get the servicing guide which says the 1.6 HDi interval is 10/12500 miles.

The van is not our only vehicle, but we've made a point of giving it a regular run of 40 - 50 miles every few weeks rather than lay it up for the winter (about 4 or 5 such trips in total I'd think), so I suppose this fits with the situation you describe. Especially as the last one involved a half-hour, stop-start crawl through roadworks!

Your reply to Brian is reassuring, but I was wondering (and Brian may have some knowledge of this by now), does the display start to correct itself once we get back into the routine of longer, cruising journeys?

Or is the servicing dealer going to "tut" at us when we take it in at the recommended interval and the display says we're 6 to 8000 miles overdue!

Geoff and Sue

[peterholden]

Have a look on the Berlingo Forum, there are various handbooks etc to download from there

Peter

[ant]

Hi Ant

I was about to start a new thread with this question, but thought I'd search first to see if the situation had come up before, and sure enough ... !

Our case seems even more extreme however.

Artoo0 was new last June, and has a current mileage of 3796 miles.
This morning, when I turned on the engine, the "Service Indicator" display came on, momentarily indicated 50 miles, and then changed to zero. This was a shock!

I clearly recall an indication of 4800 miles when setting off back from our Hogmanay jaunt to Aberdeenshire. I remarked at the time, that projected a service at about 8000 miles, which seemed low.

As I've reported previously, we don't have a Berlingo Owners Manual. Our supplier said this would come from Citroen. When it did, it was for a newer model and the correct one still hasn't turned up despite periodic chasing, so I'll be back on their case as soon as I've finished this post!
I have found what appears to be the appropriate manual on Citroen's website, but it makes no reference to this sort of problem.

We did get the servicing guide which says the 1.6 HDi interval is 10/12500 miles.

The van is not our only vehicle, but we've made a point of giving it a regular run of 40 - 50 miles every few weeks rather than lay it up for the winter (about 4 or 5 such trips in total I'd think), so I suppose this fits with the situation you describe. Especially as the last one involved a half-hour, stop-start crawl through roadworks!

Your reply to Brian is reassuring, but I was wondering (and Brian may have some knowledge of this by now), does the display start to correct itself once we get back into the routine of longer, cruising journeys?

Or is the servicing dealer going to "tut" at us when we take it in at the recommended interval and the display says we're 6 to 8000 miles overdue!

Geoff and Sue

Hi Geoff and Sue.
You may well find after a long trip the counter will give you a few more thousand miles. The servicing garage wont worry about what the vehicles computer says, I would just get the vehicle serviced every year regardless of its mileage, an honest garage will only change what needs changing and advise on any potential problems like water content of brake fluid or weakness of antifreeze. Many main dealers will just change brake fluid and antifreeze regardless of its condition, it's an easy profit centre for their workshops.
Thanks
Ant

[Artoo0]

Thanks for that Ant.

It's clear that we won't get anywhere near 10/12,000 miles in the first year, but we certainly intend to have an annual service whatever.

Peter - thanks also! I've taken a quick look and it confirms that the one I found on Citroen's website is indeed the correct version.

I've printed it off, although because it was a PDF I couldn't reduce the size and so it's A4 on one side of the paper only.

Still, it makes it easy to read.

[BrianTheSnail]

We actually got ours serviced not long after the service counter went overdue. It was IIRC about 9000 miles and 11 months from new. The counter continued to drop either with or ahead of actual mileage. Mind you, it was October and we had few longish runs and an increasing number of short hops to the shops.

The decision to have it serviced slightly early wasn't really to do with the counter but the fact we bought our van on Dec 23rd. Tax, insurance and service all within a couple of weeks of Christmas isn't ideal!

So now we have a Nov service, Dec insurance and end of May road fund (we bought 6 months end of Nov to move it). That way we still get turkey and all the trimmings.

Since the service the counter seems to be behaving exactly as it should, coming down in accordance with our milage. Looks like we'll be doing c9000 miles p.a. so an annual service is 3000 miles sooner than the expected mileage. Hopefully that will keep the van in fine fettle for quite some while.

[Artoo0]

After the above dialogue with Ant we also decided to have an early service, more because a year from new would have been in June and it seemed sensible to start the major season with a service. So we visited Ant just before Easter.

I think the counter is running as would be expected now, but we should have a better idea after our Shetland trip next month! I realise that on the islands we may be doing some shortish runs, but the two 350 mile cruises to Aberdeen and back should compensate.

Will report back.

[BrianTheSnail]

Hope you enjoy Shetland - we went up there in Sept 2010 to play amateur radio from Sumburgh lighthouse (don't ask).

The lighthouse is on an RSPB reserve and was featured on the TV that year - Liz spent much of the summer TV viewing watching puffin chicks on the nest (burrow) cams. Sadly all the puffins left en masse 2 days before we arrived.

We didn't have the van at the time so flew up from Southampton. Had a really great time and made lots of friends - Liz and I are both honorary life members of Eshaness Amateur Radio Club. A totally different way of life up there, much more relaxed.

Don't be fooled into thinking you'll only be doing shortish runs - you can cover surprising mileage on the generally excellent roads up there - the islands are much bigger than we imagined and the shortest distance between two points quite often isn't a straight line.

[macamxth1st]

ArtooO, If you do not mind can you give me an idea of how much it cost to get the van and yourselves to and from Shetland. We lived there for several years in the eighties and my wife would dearly love to go back for a holiday in the Romhome. My main concern is how you classified the van with P&O (I presume that they are still running the service but would be surprised, no make that horrified if it were still the St Clair of my day) as we found them to be horribly expensive but that could have had something to do with the fact that a major oil company were paying the invoices.

Geoff.

[Artoo0]

Hi Brian - We too have spent a pre-Roma holiday in Shetland (2008 I think!) so I know what you mean about distances. By "shorter" I was comparing with the Aberdeen haul!

Our previous stay was in a small cottage called "Da Hutt" in Gulberwick, a couple of miles south of Lerwick. We only had six usable days and Eshaness was as far north as we got, Sumburgh Head was our southernmost point.

Not nearly enough time to explore then, so this time on Day 2 we'll be heading for Unst, and have a pitch (sorry, "stance" in Scotland apparently) booked at the site run by Gardiesfauld Youth Hostel.

Macametc - It's been Northlink doing the Shetland Ferry since 2006, also the Scrabster - Stromness Orkney route. Here's a link to the Fares page:-

http://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/fares.html

It ain't cheap, but I'm over 60 so got a 10% discount which, to my surprise and delight, also applied to the van. Not to Sue though, she's too new a model!

You'll see a motorhome less than 6m long is the same as a car. Presumably a larger one pays the quoted supplement. Our total bill (van plus 2) was just over £350 return.
We haven't booked a cabin. I don't usually sleep well travelling, and we ain't paying £93 each way to not sleep in a cabin when we can not sleep in a reclining chair for nothing! (Though I wonder if the £9 Large Kennel would be big enough to lay out a sleeping bag!)

Just one thing though, if you still know people on Shetland from your time there, perhaps they would nominate you for the Family and Friends deal on the "Offers" page of the Northlink website. OK this year's offer ends shortly, but I'm pretty sure it was available last year, so may be back.

I think the "Road Equivalent Tariff" now in force on some CalMac routes makes the fares look steep on any route that doesn't have it.

One final mention, we've had a lot of useful information from the Shetland Caravan Club :-

http://www.shetland-communities.org.uk/subsites/cc

and some of the campsites (Clickimin and Brae plus some others) give a discount off site fees. We've actually joined (£12 pa) and wonder if we're their most southerly members.

Geoff