I bought my car second hand about 11 months ago, around 10k on the clock. It was a year-old to the day I bought it.

When I took it for a test drive a service warning popped up. We discussed, I was told the car would be serviced before I picked up. I also asked that it be set to Variable Servicing.

 

So, here we are 11 months later and I get a "Inspection in 29 days" message appear when I started the car up.

On further investigation I found the following:

 

Inspection in 8700 mi or 29 days

Oil Change service in 2300 mi or 196 days

 

So, couple of questions.

 

I did not want a timed service interval, I wanted it based on mileage. I knew I'd get anywhere between 15k and 20k before it wanted a service.

It's now telling me service due in 29 days (a time) and I've put just shy of 11k miles.

Can I assume this has not been set to variable servicing?

 

Why would there be separate dates/times on "Inspection" and "Oil Service" - this seems to make very little sense.

 

I've mind t go back so supplying dealer and find out why it's not on variable (however not really in mood for drive from Cambridge to Mansfield), alternatively I guess I could get this one service on time and then ask that it be set to variable.

As it had the oil service soon after you picked it up I would ignore all the messages and just get it booked in for the Inspection service in 8,700 miles time if that is what you want.

Edited 14 October, 20196 yr by shyVRS245
spelling mistake

The servicing intervals are a mess and I'm not convinced even the dealers understand why there are two intervals and what the difference is meant to be. 

 

Even when both counters are reset at the same time on variable, they start counting down from different mileages. Oil from 18600 and Inspection from 19900.

 

The only way I can rationalise this weirdness in my head is if whoever conceived this system expected two parallel series of maintenance to be carried out - oil/filter as and when the car needs it and 'inspection' services to catch things like cabin filters, spark plugs etc. every 20,000 routinely. Nobody in the real world would do this though, as it would mean twice as many dealer visits due to the two regimes never being in sync.

 

Regardless of all that, it looks like the garage reset your oil interval but not inspection interval. It must be on variable though because it would have asked for oil already on fixed, when you hit 10,000 in your ownership.

 

Personally I think I'd leave the inspection indicator alone, wait for the oil service in 2300 miles and get everything done that needs doing at whatever mileage it's on and get the servicing garage to reset both counters. They should then go to 700 and something days, 18600 til oil and 19900 to inspection. 

I've just had a similar conversation with my garage (Johnsons Liverpool) over my servicing.

 

Despite being asked to be put on the yearly service, I'd been put on the variable service plan instead. After a lengthy conversation about how I want yearly oil changes instead of every other year, they've put me back onto the fixed schedule.

Thank you all for your responses - nice to know I'm not the only one seeing this.

My initial thought was to wait until the 19k miles in my ownership have been reached and then take it in for the "everything service" which I expect on variable.

 

My only worry is that the car is still under warranty for another year and I don't want them getting out of any future warranty requirements by saying the vehicle wasn't serviced at the correct intervals.

 

I guess the compromise is to wait 2300 miles, get a service completed at that point and then get everything reset from that point.

Don't wait to hit the 19,000 mile mark as for whatever reason your car has ticked your oil service requirement down so it only has 2300 miles left.

 

The fact you've done 11,000, meaning you'd be at a total of 13300 would tally with variable servicing but under conditions in which the car has calculated you need an earlier oil change. It wouldn't be possible for it to go that far on fixed, so the oil change counter at least would appear to be working correctly.

 

Things that will drive down the available mileage on the oil change are regular hard driving, regular driving where oil not up to temp (can take 5 or 6 miles, unlike coolant), regular short trips, high loads (towing), etc. 

 

Edit - does the first service it had show up on the digital history (should be visible in MySkoda app)? 

Edited 14 October, 20196 yr by Kenai

From what I understand, fixed servicing is every year or 10k miles

15 minutes ago, Kenai said:

Edit - does the first service it had show up on the digital history (should be visible in MySkoda app)? 

 

Shows all my services, didn't know you could do that with that app. Nice one 

So the "My Skoda" app shows me the following:

 

9th November 2017 - Delivery Inspection

11th November 2018 - Service Record. Doesn't really say much other an order number.

 

So it does look like it officially happened. at 9747 miles.

 

So I've driven 11,250 or so since that service - so looks like 12k/1yr will be reached in around 29 days, so that definitely indicates we're on fixed servicing.

 

So maybe I book this in for on/around it's anniversary and make damn sure it goes onto variable after that.

To be honest, to me it looks more like both counters are on variable but they only reset the oil counter at the last service. I don't think it's possible to have one counter on variable and one counter on fixed, your oil is definitely on variable. 

 

If it were on fixed servicing it would have been saying 'oil service now' 1,250 miles ago. The fixed counter won't go any further than 10,000 miles. 

 

Get it serviced when the oil change mile counter runs down (or earlier if you want), no later.