Your car's maintenance schedule: the manual, the monitor, normal and severe
Find the schedule your car's maker wrote, decide whether your driving is normal or severe by that maker's own list, and work out what is due next by miles and months, whichever comes first.
- Start here: the essentials
- Where your car's schedule is
- Oil life monitors: what they track and what they do not
- Normal or severe: your maker's list decides
- The schedule sheet and what is due next
- Schedules in depth: three severe lists, trade-group intervals, monitors, high mileage and cost figures
- See it: Priya's sheet and the Bells' choice
- Practice: find, choose, copy, count
- Your car
- Check your work
- Knowledge check and scenario
Start here Essentials
For a first pass, find the schedule your car's maker wrote, decide normal or severe by that maker's own list, and copy the next few items onto the schedule sheet. Nothing here asks you to open the hood.
- Find the schedule and note where it is. The printed booklet, the maker's online manual or the maker's lookup by VIN (where your schedule is).
- Read your maker's severe list and choose normal or severe. Your maker's wording decides, not a general rule (normal or severe).
- Copy the next three items onto the schedule sheet. Each with its miles, its months and the page it came from (the schedule sheet, Maintenance schedule).
- Work out what is due next. Enter the last service and your miles a year in the next service calculator; the limit reached first sets the due point (whichever comes first).
Minimum time: about 30 minutes with the schedule open. Done when: the schedule sheet shows the next three items with their miles and months, normal or severe chosen, the source page, and one next-due figure.
Where your car's schedule is Understand
A maintenance schedule is the carmaker's list of services for one model and year, each with an interval in miles, in months or in both, and often a second list for harder driving. The schedule that applies to your car is the one its maker wrote. A shop's reminder sticker, a menu board or a friend's rule of thumb is someone else's schedule. Product-specific
Makers publish the schedule in four kinds of places, and many use more than one:
| Where | What it looks like | One maker's example |
|---|---|---|
| A printed booklet in the glove box | A warranty and maintenance booklet, or a maintenance section in the owner's manual | Toyota prints a Warranty & Maintenance Guide for each model year; the 2025 Camry guide (PDF) lists each service with its miles and months, and the warranty terms |
| The maker's online owner's manual | The same manual as web pages, by model and year | Hyundai's owner's manuals are online; the 2025 Sonata normal maintenance schedule is one page of its manual |
| A lookup by VIN or by owner account | A web form that returns the schedule for one car | Ford's maintenance schedule lookup takes the VIN and the mileage; Toyota's maintenance schedule page sends owners to a My Toyota account for a personalized schedule |
| The maker's support page, or the car's own reminder | A list on the maker's site; a reminder on the dashboard | Tesla lists its service items on its Vehicle Maintenance page; cars with an oil life monitor show a reminder on the dash |
The vehicle identification number (VIN) is the code that identifies one car. Ford's lookup page says to find it on the driver's door frame, at the lower corner of the windshield on the driver's side, or on the registration and insurance papers. Write it on the Car facts sheet; it stays in this browser, and the share link does not carry it.
If the booklet is missing
A used car often arrives without its booklet. Look for the online manual for the same make, model and year on the maker's owner site, or use the maker's VIN lookup where it has one. If you cannot find either, ask the service department at one of the maker's dealers where the maker publishes the schedule for your car. Ask the authority The owner's manual also tells you the powertrain if you are unsure whether the car is a gasoline, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric model; so do the registration papers and the badges on the car in many cases. A hybrid or electric car has its own items, covered in Hybrids and electric cars.
Visits and items are different things
Some makers group services into visits. Toyota's schedule page says many Toyota vehicles follow maintenance visits every 5,000 miles or 6 months. The visit is not the oil change: in the 2025 Camry guide, the oil and filter are replaced at 10,000-mile steps, while items such as the wiper blade inspection come every 5,000 miles. Read each item's own interval, not the visit spacing. Product-specific
Once you have found the schedule, write down where: the page number in the booklet, or the web address and the date you read it. That note is how you, a shop or a later buyer checks the sheet against the source. Writing the source on every row is This manual's convention; the Maintenance schedule sheet has a column for it.
Oil life monitors: what they track and what they do not
An oil life monitor is a system in the car that estimates when the engine oil is due from how the car has been driven, and shows a percentage, a message or a code. Makers name them differently (Honda's Maintenance Minder, GM's Oil Life System, Ford's Intelligent Oil-Life Monitor), and each maker's manual says how its system works and what it does not cover. Product-specific
| Maker and source | What it uses | When it warns | Yearly minimum | What it does not track |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honda (Honda Canada's Maintenance Minder page and A/0 schedule (PDF)) | Engine sensors, and how long the car runs under more severe conditions | At 15 percent oil life remaining, a "Service Due Soon" message with a code; other codes call other items | Replace the oil once a year if the oil life has not run out after 12 months | Oil level, tire tread, brake pads, battery life; it cannot predict wear from heavy trailer towing or high dust or soot |
| Chevrolet, GM (Oil Change Services, Engine Oil) | Speed and engine temperature; GM says it monitors operating conditions continuously | "Change Engine Oil Soon": service within the next 600 miles | Oil and filter changed at least once a year; the system may not call for service for more than a year | Oil level: GM says to keep checking it |
| Ford (oil life reminder FAQ) | Engine temperatures, idling and towing, shown as a percentage from 100 to 0 | As the percentage runs down; Ford says the estimate may or may not reach a full 12 months or 10,000 miles | Not stated as a separate rule in the page we read | Not listed in the page we read |
Hyundai's 2026 Sonata manual adds a condition of its own: its Oil Life Management System works only with the recommended oil, and the owner should check the amount of oil regularly.
Three rules come out of the makers' own pages:
- The monitor replaces a mileage habit for the items it tracks. If your manual says to follow the monitor, a fixed mileage from a sticker or a habit does not apply to those items. Chevrolet says its system made the 3,000-mile change obsolete for most current models. Product-specific
- The yearly minimum still applies. GM and Honda both require an oil change at least once a year when the monitor has not called for one. A car driven very little can reach the year before the monitor speaks. Product-specific
- The monitor does not check the oil level. Honda, GM and Hyundai each tell the owner to check the level. Oil, fluids and filters covers how, the way your manual says.
On the schedule sheet, an item the monitor tracks gets "monitor" in the schedule column, with the yearly minimum in the months column if your maker gives one. Honda's Minder also calls items other than oil by code (tire rotation, filters, transmission fluid, brake fluid and others in the A/0 schedule); copy the codes your manual lists so the sheet shows what each code means for your car.
Normal or severe: your maker's list decides
Most schedules have two sets of intervals. The normal schedule is the maker's default. The severe schedule (Toyota says "special operating conditions"; Hyundai says "severe usage conditions") is a shorter set of intervals, or extra items, for driving the maker defines as harder on the car. Each maker writes its own definition, and the definitions differ widely. Product-specific
Three examples show how far apart they are:
- Toyota, 2025 Camry. The extra items apply "only if the majority of your driving" is under the listed conditions: dirt, dusty or muddy roads or roads with melted snow; towing, a car-top carrier or heavy loads. Occasional exposure does not count.
- Hyundai, 2026 Sonata. The list is broad: trips under 5 miles (under 10 miles in freezing weather), extensive idling, dusty or salted roads, heavy traffic, stop-and-go driving, repeated hills, towing or roof loads, and oil that is not the recommended type. Hyundai also says to use the severe schedule after 10 years or 100,000 miles.
- Honda (Honda Canada's Minder schedules). The Minder adjusts for some conditions it senses, and Honda gives separate intervals for what it cannot sense, such as towing and dusty roads.
So the same week of driving can be normal under one maker's list and severe under another's. Short trips are the clearest case: they count in Hyundai's list and do not appear among Toyota's listed conditions. The answer for your car is in your maker's list, read word by word. Product-specific The Go deeper section puts the three lists side by side.
How to read your maker's list
- Find the page. In the booklet or online manual, look for "severe", "special operating conditions" or "severe usage". Some makers put it beside the normal table; some put it at the end.
- Find the rule word. Does the list apply if "any" condition applies, if the car is "usually" driven that way, or only if it is the "majority" of the driving? That word decides more than the list does.
- Check each condition against your usual weeks, not your worst week. Note any age or mileage rule, like Hyundai's 10 years or 100,000 miles.
- Note which items change. Under Toyota's special conditions, oil and filter go to every 5,000 miles or six months, "regardless of the oil used", and the engine air filter is inspected every 5,000 miles on dusty roads. Other items keep their normal intervals.
- Write the choice on the sheet. Normal or severe in the schedule column for each item, and the page number in the source column.
The setup asks about short trips, stop-and-go traffic, towing, dust, salt and heat. Treat your answers as a list of words to look for on your maker's page. Whether any of them makes your driving severe is your maker's call, in your maker's words. Ask the authority If the wording leaves you unsure, ask the service department at one of your maker's dealers how the maker reads it, and write the answer and the date in the source column.
Choosing the schedule also has a record side. Toyota's 2025 guide says a warranty claim is not denied solely because the owner has no records, and that damage caused by a lack of proper maintenance is not covered. A sheet that shows which schedule you chose, and why, is part of that record. Recalls, warranties and service contracts covers what the warranty asks of you.
This manual does not publish a schedule for any car. Every interval on this page is an example from a named maker, model and year, and the schedule sheet holds your own maker's intervals, not ours. Whether your driving counts as severe is your maker's definition, which differs by maker; the manual does not decide it for you. A monitor's reading replaces a mileage habit, not the maker's yearly minimum. If your manual and a shop disagree, the manual is the schedule, and Discussing recommendations covers how to check a recommendation against it. Ask the authority
The schedule sheet and what is due next
The Maintenance schedule sheet turns the maker's table into a list you can act on. Each row is one item, and each column answers one question a shop or a later buyer will ask:
| Column | What goes in it | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Item | The service as your maker names it ("Replace engine oil and filter", "Inspect brake fluid") | The schedule, word for word where you can |
| Interval miles, interval months | Both numbers when the schedule gives both; one blank when it gives one | The normal or severe column you chose |
| Schedule | Normal, severe, monitor, or not in schedule | Your choice from your maker's list |
| Last done (date and odometer) | From an invoice, or blank if unknown | Your Service log and invoices |
| Next due (odometer and date) | Last done plus the interval, for each limit | The next service calculator |
| Source | Booklet page, or web address and date | Your note from finding the schedule |
Start with the next three items that fall due, not the whole table. The sheet comes seeded with common item names for your powertrain and blank intervals; fill the intervals from your own schedule and delete rows your schedule does not have. An item the shop recommends that your schedule does not list goes in with "not in schedule", so the sheet shows the difference. Oil, fluids and filters covers the oil, coolant, brake fluid and filter rows.
Whichever comes first
Schedules state most intervals in two units at once. Toyota's 2025 guide gives its visits as every 5,000 miles or six months, "whichever comes first"; Hyundai's 2025 Sonata schedule says "number of months or driving distance, whichever comes first". An item is due at whichever limit you reach first. A car driven little reaches the months limit first; a car driven a lot reaches the miles first. Toyota's guide adds that low-mileage drivers should still obtain maintenance every six months. Convention
The next service calculator does the arithmetic for one item:
- Miles left = odometer at last service + interval in miles − odometer now.
- Months left by mileage = miles left ÷ (miles a year ÷ 12), at your usual pace.
- Months left by time = interval in months − months since last service.
- Due at the smaller of the two months-left figures. A negative figure means past due by that much.
Some items have one unit only. Honda's A/0 schedule gives brake fluid as every 3 years if the Minder has not called for it sooner; Toyota's 2025 guide gives spark plugs at 120,000 miles. Leave the other column blank and the calculator uses the one it has.
If you do not know your miles a year
The months-left-by-mileage figure needs your miles a year. If you do not know it, estimate it from two odometer readings with dates: two invoices, two state inspection reports, two registration renewals that record the odometer, or a reading today and one from an old invoice. This manual's convention
- Subtract the readings. For example, 50,100 − 42,300 = 7,800 miles.
- Count the months between the two dates. In the example, 8 months.
- Divide and multiply by 12. 7,800 ÷ 8 = 975 miles a month; × 12 = 11,700 miles a year.
Readings a year or more apart give a steadier figure than two readings a month apart, because they include both a busy season and a quiet one. Enter the result in the setup or straight into the calculator, and write how you got it next to the figure. These numbers are an example, not anyone's car.
Restarting a schedule when the history is unknown
A used car, a car with lost papers or a car that changed shops often has items whose last service nobody can show. This manual's method for that case is a convention we chose, not a maker's rule: This manual's convention
- Treat an item with no record as due, or as due for inspection where your schedule says "inspect" rather than "replace". Time-based items, such as brake fluid on a years interval, are the clearest case: with no date, you cannot show the time has not passed.
- Log it from today. When the item is done, its date and odometer become the "last done" on the sheet, and every later interval counts from there.
- Keep first-change items at the maker's mileage. Where a schedule gives a first change at a mileage the car has not reached (Toyota's 2025 Camry coolant is first at 100,000 miles or 120 months), that point stays on the sheet as written.
- Write "history unknown before" and the date in the source column, so the next reader of the sheet sees why the item was done.
The method can mean paying for an item that was done last year by someone who kept no record. It does not settle whether an item was due; it gives you a known starting point. If an item is expensive, ask the shop to inspect it and show you what it found before you decide, which is the method in Discussing recommendations. Your service records covers how to look for older records first.
The 3,000-mile habit and other people's intervals
Many drivers learned to change oil every 3,000 miles. CalRecycle, California's recycling agency, runs a campaign that asks drivers to check the interval in the owner's manual and says the old 3,000-mile standard is out of date for most cars (CalRecycle, Check Your Number). It also says it makes no recommendation for any make or model. Chevrolet says many older Chevrolet models do require 3,000-mile intervals, and that its oil life system made that interval obsolete for most current ones. Both point to the same place: the schedule for your car. Product-specific
The Car Care Council, an aftermarket trade group whose members sell parts and service, publishes its own general intervals. In a 2016 release it said most owner's manuals recommend oil every 3,000 to 5,000 miles and advised the lower end (Car Care Council, 2016 release). That is shorter than the 8,000 and 10,000 miles in the 2025 Hyundai and Toyota schedules above. A trade group's interval is a general guideline for many cars, and it does not replace your maker's. Convention Oil, fluids and filters gives the full treatment of oil intervals.
Schedules in depth: three severe lists, trade-group intervals, monitors, high mileage and cost figures Go deeper
Three makers' severe lists side by side
From Toyota's 2025 Camry guide, Hyundai's 2026 Sonata manual and Honda Canada's A/0 schedule with its Minder page. "Not listed" means the condition is not among those the page names.
| Question | Toyota, 2025 Camry | Hyundai, 2026 Sonata | Honda (Canada), A/0 Minder schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| When the list applies | Only if the majority of driving is under a condition; occasional exposure does not count | "If any of the following conditions apply"; the conditions describe how the car is usually operated | The Minder adjusts oil life for conditions it senses; separate intervals cover what it cannot |
| Short trips | Not listed | Under 5 miles; under 10 miles in freezing weather | Not a separate interval; part of what the Minder senses |
| Heavy traffic, stop-and-go, idling | Not listed | Listed | Not a separate interval |
| Dust, mud, gravel | Dirt, dusty or muddy roads | Dusty roads | Dusty gravel or soot: air and cabin filters every 24,000 km |
| Salt or melted snow | Roads with melted snow | Salted roads | Not listed |
| Towing, roof loads, heavy loads | Towing, car-top carrier, heavy loading | Towing or roof loads | Towing or steep mountains: transmission fluid every 40,000 km |
| Hills | Not listed | Repeated hills | Steep mountain driving (with towing, above) |
| Oil type | Special-conditions oil interval applies "regardless of the oil used" | Non-recommended oil (mineral, semi-synthetic, lower grade) puts the car on the severe schedule | Not listed |
| Age or mileage rule | Not listed | Severe after 10 years or 100,000 miles | Extreme temperatures (over 43 °C or under −30 °C): timing belt every 100,000 km, V6 models only |
Honda's figures are from the Canadian schedule, in kilometers; we did not convert them, and US Honda pages were not readable when we checked. Of the two rule words, Hyundai's "any" reaches more drivers than Toyota's "majority". Neither tells you which is better for an engine; each is that maker's rule for its own cars.
Why trade-group intervals are shorter
No source we found explains the Car Care Council's numbers in detail; its numeric interval guide was offline when we checked, and only its tips page and the 2016 release could be read. Three things are on the record. The council is an aftermarket trade group, part of an association of parts and service businesses. Its vehicle systems overview describes its interval schedule as general guidelines for cars, minivans, pickups and SUVs as a group, where a maker's schedule is written for one model. And its 2016 release names weather, stop-and-go driving, dusty roads, towing, high speeds and vehicle age as reasons to shorten the oil interval, and advises the lower end of its range. A shorter interval written for every car can be right for some cars and early for others; your maker's schedule is the one written for yours.
How monitors estimate oil life, as the makers describe it
The makers describe inputs, not formulas. Honda says the Minder uses engine sensors and the time spent under more severe conditions. GM says its system uses speed and engine temperature. Ford says its monitor counts engine temperatures, idling and towing, and gives heavy idling as an example where it may call for a change at 7 months or 4,000 miles. None of these pages publishes the calculation, and none says the system measures the oil itself. We do not describe them further than the makers do.
Schedules past the booklet's last column
A printed table stops at some mileage, but many items are written as repeating intervals that keep applying beyond it. Toyota's 2025 Camry coolant, for example, is first at 100,000 miles or 120 months and then every 50,000 miles or 60 months. For items written that way, keep adding the interval to the last logged service. Hyundai adds its own rule for older cars: after 10 years or 100,000 miles, the severe schedule. For a maker with no stated rule past its table, ask the maker's dealer service department whether the maker publishes one, and write the answer in the source column. Ask the authority
What maintenance costs, by one published estimate
AAA's Your Driving Costs 2026 puts maintenance, repair and tires at a weighted average of 11.73 cents a mile (AAA, Your Driving Costs 2026 brochure (PDF)). Read the conditions before reading the number. The figure is for new 2026 vehicles, five top-selling models in each of seven categories, averaged over five years and 75,000 miles. AAA's fact sheet (PDF) says the category includes routine maintenance the maker specifies, a comprehensive extended warranty, wear-and-tear repairs over the five years, and one set of replacement tires, and that actual costs vary with driving habits, location and conditions. It describes new cars with a service contract. It is not a benchmark for an older car, a car without a contract or your own schedule's total, and we do not compare it with one. The yearly upkeep calculator adds up your own schedule's items at your own prices.
See it: Priya's sheet and the Bells' choice See it
Priya Raman is a fictional person; every fact about her and her car is invented for this manual, including her schedule. She is 34 and uses she/her. She drives a 2017 gasoline compact sedan with a conventional automatic, bought used in 2021, now at 98,400 miles. She drives about 11,000 miles a year, mostly a 14-mile highway commute. She has used the same independent shop twice, and the shop has just changed her oil.
Known: she finds her owner's manual online. Her schedule lists oil and filter every 7,500 miles or 12 months, the cabin filter every 15,000 miles, the engine air filter every 30,000 miles, brake fluid every 3 years, coolant first at 100,000 miles and then every 50,000, and no fuel injection service. Her records show no brake fluid change since she bought the car in 2021.
Assumed: that none of the conditions on her maker's severe list describes most of her driving. Her maker's list is the one that counts, and she confirms the assumption by reading that page of her online manual. Under that assumption, she marks her rows "normal".
Her sheet, three rows first:
- Oil and filter: 7,500 miles or 12 months; last done today at 98,400. Next due at 105,900 miles or in 12 months. At 11,000 miles a year (about 917 a month), 7,500 miles takes about 8.2 months, so the miles come first, in about 8 months.
- Coolant: first at 100,000 miles, which is 1,600 miles away, or about 1.7 months at her pace. Her schedule gives this item in miles, so the months column stays blank.
- Brake fluid: every 3 years, time only. No change on record since 2021, more than 3 years ago, so under this manual's restart convention the row reads "due now".
Open: when the cabin and engine air filters were last changed. Her invoices do not say. Under the restart convention, the cabin filter is treated as due and logged from the day it is done; for the air filter she can ask the shop to show it to her, which Discussing recommendations walks through. Whether the previous owner changed the coolant early is open too, and only records from before 2021 would settle it; the sheet keeps the maker's 100,000-mile point. Her schedule lists no fuel injection service; if a shop offers one, it goes on the sheet as "not in schedule".
Marcus Bell (he/him), 41, and Dana Bell (she/her), 39, are fictional; every fact about them and their car is invented for this manual. They bought a 2023 hybrid compact SUV new in March 2023. It has 31,200 miles, and they drive about 12,000 miles a year. The dealer has done every service.
Known: most weekday trips are under 5 miles. They tow a 1,500 lb pop-up camper four weekends each summer. Their booklet's special conditions count towing only when it is most of the driving, and its list does not include short trips.
Assumed: that four summer weekends of towing are not "most" of their driving, whether counted in miles or in days. If they were unsure how the maker counts it, the dealer's service department would settle it.
Under these facts and that assumption, they stay on the normal schedule, and for the summer they add the towing items their booklet lists, as the booklet allows. The short trips do not change it, because their maker does not list them. The same driving would read differently under another maker's list: Hyundai's 2026 Sonata list counts trips under 5 miles, and Toyota's 2025 Camry rule would also look for a majority. The Bells write "normal; towing items each summer" and the booklet page in the source column.
Open: exactly which items the towing rule adds and at what intervals, which their booklet's special-conditions page lists and the dealer's service department confirms. The hybrid's own items are in Hybrids and electric cars.
- Toyota, 2025 Camry Warranty & Maintenance Guide (PDF): a full printed schedule, normal and special conditions, with the "whichever comes first" wording.
- Hyundai, 2026 Sonata scheduled maintenance: a broad severe list and the 10 years or 100,000 miles rule.
- Honda Canada, Maintenance Minder: how one oil life monitor works and what it does not watch.
- CalRecycle, Check Your Number: a state agency on the 3,000-mile habit.
Practice: find, choose, copy, count Practice
Minimum: the schedule found and its page noted, normal or severe chosen, the next three items on the sheet with miles and months, and one next-due figure from the calculator. Time: about 45 minutes; add 15 minutes if you have to estimate your miles a year. Materials: the owner's manual or booklet, or a device to open the maker's online manual or VIN lookup; your most recent invoice or the current odometer reading; any older invoices; the Maintenance schedule sheet and the next service calculator (or paper and a calculator).
- Find the schedule. Booklet, online manual, VIN lookup or the maker's support page. Write the page number or web address and today's date.
- Read the severe page. Copy the rule word ("any", "usually", "majority") and the conditions onto a note. Mark each one that describes your usual weeks. Choose normal or severe, and write the reason in a few words.
- Copy three items. The next three that fall due, each with miles, months, schedule and source. Leave "last done" blank where you have no record.
- Fill in last done. From invoices or the Service log. A shop's reminder sticker shows the shop's next-due figure, not the maker's; use it only for the date and mileage of the work, if it records them.
- Count one. Put the item due soonest into the next service calculator. Write the result in the next-due columns.
Finish the sheet. Copy every remaining item, including the ones that only say "inspect". Mark items your monitor tracks as "monitor" with the yearly minimum. Apply the restart convention to every item with no record and write "history unknown before" with the date. Estimate your miles a year from two dated odometer readings with the method above, if the setup figure was a guess. Check the severe choice once a year, or when your driving changes: a new commute, a trailer, a move to a salted-road state.
Your car Your car
Check your work Check your work
Criteria
- Does every row on the sheet name its source: a page number, or a web address and a date?
- Is the normal or severe choice written down, with the rule word from your maker's list behind it?
- Does each item carry both limits your schedule gives (miles and months), and a blank where it gives only one?
- Is the next-due figure for at least one item worked out by whichever limit comes first, at your own miles a year?
- Where the history is unknown, does the row say so, with the date you restarted it?
- If your car has a monitor, do the rows it tracks say "monitor", with the maker's yearly minimum?
Worked example
Priya's sheet has the oil, coolant and brake fluid rows with her online manual's page in the source column, "normal" in the schedule column under her stated assumption, and the oil's next due point at 105,900 miles, in about 8 months by mileage at her pace. Brake fluid reads "due now, history unknown before 2021". It passes. It does not say whether the filters were changed recently, because nothing she has settles that; the rows say "last done: unknown". The Bells' sheet reads "normal; towing items each summer" with the booklet page. It passes too: the choice rests on their maker's wording, not on how hard their trips feel.
Common mistakes
- Choosing severe because the driving feels hard. The maker's list and its rule word decide. Toyota's "majority" and Hyundai's "any" give different answers for the same driver.
- Reading the visit interval as the oil interval. A 5,000-mile visit can be an inspection; check each item's own row.
- Dropping the months limit. A low-mileage car reaches the months first. A blank months column should mean the schedule gives none, not that you skipped it.
- Treating the monitor as a level check. It estimates oil life; the makers say to check the level yourself.
- Copying a shop's sticker into the interval column. The sticker is a reminder from the shop. The interval comes from the schedule.
What is still unresolved
This chapter gives you the yardstick, not a verdict on any one service. Whether a specific recommendation is due is checked against the sheet in Discussing recommendations. The oil your engine takes, how to check the level and the fluid rows are in Oil, fluids and filters; tire rotation and pressure are in Tires. Whether your maker counts a borderline condition as severe is settled by the maker, through its manual or its dealer service department. What the warranty requires of your records is in Recalls, warranties and service contracts.