What utter nonsense. A friend in the industry was one of a team of long term test drivers, their job to drive a new model car continuously on the road to expose any faults that might crop up in consumer use. In the main all the car would get during its circa 100,000 miles in that yearwas fuel and occasional oil top ups, plus attention when necessary to any item that did crop up, like brake pad and tyre wear. That's just one example of why the service schedules are a rip off to provide dealer income.
I don't know your age, but perhaps you remember as far back as the 1960s when there were cars with 3000 mile service intervals. The ubiquitous Mini for example, the makers insisting these were essential. Now even 15,000 miles is not uncommon, five times the mileage, so "essential" seems to change its meaning.
In the USA they don't put up with all this nonsense, hence long recommended intervals there and consumers ignoring them anyway. Here's a quote about conditions there and there are many more online:
"All cars sold in USA must be capable of staying within exhaust emissions limits for 100,000 miles without maintenance. All that's needed for the first 100,000 miles of a car's life is occasional oil changes and fluid top-ups. Plus any tyres or brake pads which wear out.
Using fully synthetic oil some tests have been done running cars to 100,000 miles with no maintenance at all (not even an oil change) - apparently without difficulty."
The reason for this is that the US dealer income model is car sales dependent in that consumer society, and America's drivers often cover very high mileages in that large country. We Europeans inconveniently cover much lower mileages and often like to keep our cars long term, meaning main dealerships have no hope of living off car sales alone. So over the years the industry and trade have developed a servicing income dependency to overcome the problem. I've seen this in action when consumer pressure prompts a manufacturer to considerably extend a service interval to gain market advantage, only to be met with a storm of protest from their dealers and the interval shortened again to placate them.
Oh dear Tommie, the MOT doesn't include most service schedule items, it's confined to such safety items as brakes, steering, lights, wiper blades and washers, bodywork intact. Mechanical maintenance such as servicing for longevity isn't included.
If you'd kept up to speed on this you'd know that not long ago on sound technical advice from the industry the DfT proposed extending the MOT intervals. Their intention was the first MOT at 4 years instead of 3, then subsequent MOTs at two year intervals instead of 1 year, all very sensible. But once again there was a storm of protest from dealers with false claims that this would cause a huge rise in accidents, something long disproven.
That is what this is all about Tommie, dealer income, nothing else. Now they are facing a new very big problem, the pure electric cars which need hardly any servicing, and many secretly hate them as result. My one is typical, a very short list of things to merely look at on a service and only one actual action, unscrew the reduction box filler to check the oil level which hardly ever needs topping up anyway. Even an e-car's brakes dont wear out since the motor does most or all of the routine braking. In fact since there's so little on the service, Nissan cut the recommended price for a main dealer Leaf service to £99, but their dealers kicking up a fuss have forced it back up £125 now, a rip off for doing virtually nothing. You can see why they are upset with e-cars, ic car main dealer services come in typically at near to double that.
The current Leaf's recommended service interval is 18,000 miles, but they still say it should also be annual, despite most e-car owners taking at least two years to cover that distance, often over three years.
Once again showing its all about dealer income and not necessity.
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