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Stiggy · Apr 19th, 2008, 12:21 PM

I thought I’d pass on my experiences – both good and bad.

As my Cooper D is going to have fairly low mileage, I worked out it would be nearly 2 years until the first oil change under TLC. As this is an expensive car (with an expensive auto gearbox) I decided to get an early oil change at about 3000 miles when the car is nicely run in.

National Tyre will do a filter and oil change using Castrol Edge Full Synthetic for £37 if you book online. I went to my local centre at Bedford, and the guys did the job. However, looking at the paperwork afterwards, they had put in Castrol Edge 5W40 Turbo Diesel, not the 0W30 I had asked for. An understandable mistake I thought, as the car is a turbo diesel! I rang them up, and got a ‘cock and bull’ story about actually the oil was Duckhams and it was the right grade. I rang their customer support line, and got a very helpful guy who checked their Castrol Oil guide, and the only entry they had was the MINI One D having 5W40. I pointed out that this was a totally different car, and I had double-checked with MINI (and Peugeot) and it should be 0W30.

They did the second oil change for free, of course. Having gotten somewhat paranoid at this point, I decided to play safe and buy the proper BMW/MINI oil filter for the replacement oil change. Guess how much? £16 inc. VAT from Elms Bedford!

So, the National Tyre deal is good, but make sure you get what you want. My double oil and filter change cost me less than £60, so I’m happy.

Apr 19th, 2008, 12:21 PM	#1
Stiggy Automatic for the People Join Date: Aug 2007 Local Time: 11:45 PM Posts: 381 Offline	£37 oil change at National Tyre I thought I’d pass on my experiences – both good and bad. As my Cooper D is going to have fairly low mileage, I worked out it would be nearly 2 years until the first oil change under TLC. As this is an expensive car (with an expensive auto gearbox) I decided to get an early oil change at about 3000 miles when the car is nicely run in. National Tyre will do a filter and oil change using Castrol Edge Full Synthetic for £37 if you book online. I went to my local centre at Bedford, and the guys did the job. However, looking at the paperwork afterwards, they had put in Castrol Edge 5W40 Turbo Diesel, not the 0W30 I had asked for. An understandable mistake I thought, as the car is a turbo diesel! I rang them up, and got a ‘cock and bull’ story about actually the oil was Duckhams and it was the right grade. I rang their customer support line, and got a very helpful guy who checked their Castrol Oil guide, and the only entry they had was the MINI One D having 5W40. I pointed out that this was a totally different car, and I had double-checked with MINI (and Peugeot) and it should be 0W30. They did the second oil change for free, of course. Having gotten somewhat paranoid at this point, I decided to play safe and buy the proper BMW/MINI oil filter for the replacement oil change. Guess how much? £16 inc. VAT from Elms Bedford! So, the National Tyre deal is good, but make sure you get what you want. My double oil and filter change cost me less than £60, so I’m happy.