[JimD]

Georgeair,

There is no example under 6,000 miles but I am pretty sure that it is saying that if you've gone at least a full year and you've driven 6,000 miles or less (those are the exact words) then you get a "free" oil change. So if you drive only 2,500 miles a year, you continue to get free oil changes annually.

The worst case seems to be driving 6,001 miles per year. If you are easy on the car, you could go 15,000 miles or more before the service indicator comes on and get only one oil change on the dealer under the warranty/free maintenance. I would be close to this worst case since I drive about 7500 miles a year in my bimmer (plus another 10,000 in my SUV). I got my one "free" oil change in July after the first year. I should get one more on them.

I am interested in this information but my initial reaction is to not change very much my plans. I was planning to change it myself semi-annually so the dealer would be doing every other oil change. I might extend things a little but probably not. If I extended to 7,500 it would mean annual oil changes and I think that is just too long regardless of mileage. Probably I will go to every 5,000 miles which is what I do on my SUV (which also has synthetic oil in it).

I think the change makes it clear that BMW's only motivation is minimizing maintenance. Their CPO cars will get the minimum and be a really bad buy with implementation of this schedule. They should have to put a sticker on them detailed the lack of any sort of reasonable maintenance.

Jim