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Hi there,

we had a service on our Estima at the start of November at our local garage, it had all the usual things done to it and also about $750 worth of work to breaks and disc pads. Today the van went in for a WOF and I have heard back from the garage and it has passed fine but was told the van was due a service and it also had a major oil leak. I mentioned it had been serviced at the end of last year and he said we had done 5,000km so it was due again. So question one - how often does one get a service and secondly, how quickly can an oil leak turn into a major oil leak? Would it not have been something that was picked up at the last service less than 4 months ago, there are no oil spots were our car is parked in the driveway either.

Many thanks.

Service schedules are generally no more frequent than 10,000km intervals, and there is no need to service a vehicle at 5,000km.
If the vehicle is not dropping any oil on the ground, I find it hard to believe the leak is major, but perhaps it would be advisable to get a second opinion.
To be honest, it's impossible to say how quickly an oil leak can turn from a small amount that you might expect on an older vehicle, into a major leak - as it could happen quickly if a seal suddenly failed, or could take a long time to develop in other circumstances.
In summary, I don't think it's necessary to service the vehicle yet, and I'd question how bad the oil leak is. Hopefully it's not a case of the garage trying to drum up business for themselves.

That said, alot of people do a oil change at 5,000km in turbo cars. In fact, Mitsubishi use to have it in the service schedule (now 7500km since they now have 15,000km full service intervals)

Is the van a turbo diesel?