GT4 service interval too long? - Page 1 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

The 2 year interval seems crazy long to me. I’ve done about 9k miles in the last year and most have been pretty full on. Surely it needs a basic oil change at least once a year? Anyone else gets their serviced more than once every 2 years?

Spyder, but yes, every 5000 or ever year(ish).

bosshog said: The 2 year interval seems crazy long to me. I’ve done about 9k miles in the last year and most have been pretty full on. Surely it needs a basic oil change at least once a year? Anyone else gets their serviced more than once every 2 years? I do the servicing as scheduled, but have additional oil changes every 5-6k miles anyway, along with airfilter checks. Car gets a mini service/ trackday checks every 3-5 events depending on where they are and how hard they might have been on the car. Edited by TDT on Saturday 1st July 21:32

Would think you would need to send a sample off for analysis to tell if the oil was good or not after the period. It’s easy to just say the interval was too long but surely Porsche have done that analysis and hey most cars seem to be barely run in so mileage wont be the main issue. Driving regularly and getting the oil up to temp would be another important thing to get rid of any moisture in the system.

Certainly oil and filter every year

If it needed it every year then Porsche would do it every year

130R said: If it needed it every year then Porsche would do it every year Do you remember back in 2005 when Porsche suddenly pretty much doubled the service intervals on many of their models despite the previous year's models being identical? I think that service intervals are based more on making the ownership costs cheaper over a certain amount of years rather than over the full lifespan of the car.

I do what it says in the schedule - 2yrs/20,000m. If Porsche are satisfied the interval can be two years that's good enough for me as I'm not throwing away good money when I don't need to.

BAMoFo said: Do you remember back in 2005 when Porsche suddenly pretty much doubled the service intervals on many of their models despite the previous year's models being identical? I think that service intervals are based more on making the ownership costs cheaper over a certain amount of years rather than over the full lifespan of the car. Correct. USA cars have 12 month /10k mile intervals I have always done annual oil and filter change

Surely it depends upon how the car is used and also how long you plan to keep the car ? I can't imagine that their GT4 Clubsports are on two year service intervals ... and oil is an inexpensive insurance ... it's also worth looking at the oil coming out to pre-empt any future issues and you could have oil analysed if you wish ? As an aside, it may not be the most stupid to change gearbox oil from time to time if the car is being worked "to full specification" ?? I changed mine at the end of the running-in period and still had pinion wear at 30,000 miles which might have been avoidable .... Just 'saying !

For the price of oil and a filter I think it’s a no brainier to do changes in between. They’re cars that are used hard (generally), so changing the oil is a minor task.

Some youtube videos where they analyse oil use / age / viscosity etc. Fully synthetic can protect ‘within spec’ for longer service durations (2 yrs, 20k miles etc) but its properties decline with use and age. To state the obvious, a 2 year old oil that has done 15k miles isn’t the same as a 1 year old oil that has done 7.5k miles. I’ve also seen youtube mechanics say these longer intervals aren’t optimal from a mechanical perspective and mainly pushed by marketing departments. The bean counters figure out how much it might cost in warranty repairs and as long as theses costs are reasonable, they push whatever will help sales. The mechanics recommend annual oil changes. But then they would say that? I guess if its a keeper, better safe than sorry? Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 3rd July 10:01

In summary, if you are going to keep the car forever / for a long time do more frequent oil changes as a minimum (engine and transmission). However, if you only intend to keep the car for a shorter period of time, and want to save money, then stick to the Porsche recommended servicing schedule.

The 718 GT4 has a 2yr, 20,000m service interval. The accompanying track use manual states an oil and filter change is required every 6000 track miles which is what, 10-15 track days? If you're nowhere near these limits then you're throwing money away doing annual oil and filter changes IMHO and in the opinion of my OPC when I asked them what they thought of them. I do around 5000m per year including 5 or 6 track days so every 2 years/20,000m works just fine for me.

^^^ that is entirely your perogative. I just hope that you aren't intending to keep the car forever though because you are likely to be negatively affected by that sort of maintenance routine. For full disclosure, I am not an automotive engineer, but I have been responsible for deriving maintenance schedules for far more complex equipment in the recent past.

Yes I am keeping the car forever. I see no reason to ignore Porsche's own guidelines and schedules and I'm not throwing money down the drain. The extended warranty, which per year is not that much more than an oil and filter change at an OPC, will cover me for the next 12 years and 60k+ miles too.

Ask a service advisor or dealer principal off the record what they would do if it was their own car that they intended to keep for 15 years +

It's been 23 months and 19,000 since my non-GT Porsche was serviced (it's being done next month), I've done four track days in this time. Works fine.