Why do cars with the same engine have different service intervals?

QUESTION

Hi John,

Regarding our 2018 Toyota RAV4 GX (AWD 2.5-litre petrol), my wife also has a 2017 Toyota Camry Atara SX 2.5-litre with a service interval of 15,000km or 12 months. My RAV4 2.5 has an identical engine, but the service interval is 10,000km or 6 months. Is that correct?

I find it hard to understand as the engines are identical.

Thanks for your help.

Emanuel

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ANSWER

According to Redbook, the RAV interval is right, but the Camry is 15,000km or 9 months (whichever comes first).

Yes, the engines do seem similar, there’s bugger all difference in their peak outputs, but I’d suggest that they may have made some minor material differences like oil spec, or perhaps responded to feedback. Carmakers do this all the time.

I’d also suggest, just because the engines seem identical, the drivelines are difference - two-wheel drive versus all-wheel drive - so there’s different components in play, sending drive to the rear, which might have servicing implications.

Also, the RAV4 is heavier, it has a greater tow capacity, conceivably it might be used in a harsher environment than the Camry, which might shrink the distance and time service schedule. So there’s a rational basis somewhere there.

However, what’d I would say is that carmakers don’t retrospectively change service intervals. You buy the car, it’s specified, that’s it - and it’s absolutely imperative that you stick to this schedule because if you have some kind of consumer-law type claim down the track (after the warranty has expired), the easiest way for carmakers to brush you off or dismiss your claim, is if you don’t stick to the service interval.

Servicing is dirt cheap. If you have the money to buy a new or reasonably late-model car, if you have the money to put fuel in it, to insure it, to register it, then you have the money to service it at those intervals whenever the carmaker stipulates.

I know it’s a grudge purchase, but it’s a comparatively trivial cost because if it costs $500 in servicing per year, that’s $10 a week. People spend more on coffee or grog every week. Just be grateful you don’t have to go to the post office once a month and pay the depreciation, because that would be $200 a week on a $50k car.

Stick to the servicing schedule - regardless of how incongruous it seems - because there can be a really rational basis for those different servicing intervals on identical engines.

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