I've got a 325d, and hate the extended oil change intervals. I also used to work in oil technical development and testing at one of the majors, so this isn't just personal opinion or bias.

My car was reckoning on first oil change at 18-19k. I had it in to my local BMW dealer (Llandudno) at 10k for an oil and filter change. Total cost approx £180.

Now, my car only had a 2.0 engine, where yours is a 3.0, so I'd expect your bill to be higher. However, as long as the garage isn't ripping you off, then I'd go main dealer. I'd also tell the dealer NOT to reset the service requirements on the car, but only to enter the work done into the service record on the car. That way you still get your 'service inclusive' changes at the due time / mileage.

You'd like to think so Avant, but until these makers start putting their money where their service requirements are, and as Kia/Hundai/Toyota etc, offer genuine long life warranties to match their long life (ho ho) servicing-to-please-leasers, many of us will assume that they still fit timing chains (or other weak point of any chosen brand) of cheese in the most stupid places imaginable that last not very well, we'll just continue service things the way we've found works.

Recently a BMW salesman told me the dealership recommended 12 months or 18,000 miles, whichever comes first. OK - what would a salesman know about it? - but that does seem reasonable.

12 months or 18K miles is the Volvo service interval: there is no long-life option, they want to change the oil every year. On its new VEA engines, Volvo also stipulates that ONLY a specific 0W20 Castrol oil is used, the motor was designed with this low-friction, low-ash oil in mind.

You can look at this one of two ways:

1) Volvo believes that a year or 18,000 is the realistic service life of the oil in its engines, or

2) Volvo wants to give its dealers annual service revenue, and doesn't have a large enough market presence to be bothered about minimising service costs to attract the fleet / PCP buyers for the critical 3-years-from-new ownership period.

As GordonBennett pointed out above, it is amusing that none of the so-called premium brands will put their money where their mouth is, and actually offer a warranty longer than three years. This tells you everything you need to know about how much those premium brands spend on marketing, compared with engineering and development.

The OP has said that they are looking at keeping the car for a serious length of time. As such, at least in the first 5 years, I'd recommend getting ALL the 'additional' services carried out by BMW.

When out of warranty, the likelyhood of getting 'goodwill' contributions will be highly dependent on having a highly comprehensive main agent service record.

And don't forget your gearbox oil! BMW and every other manufacture I can think of say it's sealed for life, but it's best to replace around 80,000 miles. Especially if it is a manual gear box.

Hyundai changed the gear oil at the 6 yr/60000 service on my i30. Presumably Kia have the sam policy for the Ceed.

Probably why they give longer warranties than BMW/VW