What is Condition Based Servicing?

Many cars have set service intervals – six months or 12 months are common requirements.

There's significant debate on whether a service every six months is appropriate or just padding dealers' pockets. On the other end of the scale, most pundits say at a minimum you should have your car checked over every 12 months or 20,000km.

BMW and some other marques have side-stepped this debate, instead using Condition Based Servicing (CBS). In effect, your car tells you when it needs attention.

According to BMW, with CBS, “sensors and advanced algorithms monitor and calculate the conditions in which a vehicle is used, including mileage, time elapsed since its last service, fuel consumption and how a vehicle is driven... Based on the information captured, maintenance requirements are determined, identifying whether an annual vehicle inspection or oil service is due.”

In your BMW, CBS monitors oil levels and oil life via distance and fuel consumption and, via oil quality from a sensor located in the oil pan, the amount of component wear and tear.

Driving and car usage habits affect the life of the oil as well as environmental conditions such as temperature and driving terrain. Staying away from multiple short trips, being moderate on the accelerator and living in temperate regions will require fewer oil changes and less maintenance. The opposite is also generally true.

CBS takes into account some of these factors. It also checks brake pad wear and the time/mileage recommendations for fixed services. From the various measurements it then analyses this data and tells you when a service is next due.

In BMWs, the system check can be accessed via the car’s infotainment system.

Typically, BMW’s CBS settings give you around a month’s notice to “plan your service appointments well in advance and avoid any unnecessary maintenance work,” the car maker says.

The benefits, proponents say, is that your car is serviced when it needs to be – potentially saving money. Some experts counter by raising concerns that CBS systems are still not ‘smart’ enough to guarantee the best result.

In the trucking, industrial and marine sectors, condition based servicing using data such as oil analysis and trip logs has been accepted and, indeed, championed for decades.