10,000 mile / 2 year service

Morning all, just registered as I've been lurking for a while. I bought my first Jimny last year in June, a '22 plate kinetic yellow with black roof.

Quick question, when I bought it the Suzuki dealer carried out a 5,000 mile service (it was on 4,700 miles) and I've just phoned up to book for a 2 year / 10,000 mile service and was advised that the 'standard' Suzuki service suggests a cylinder head cover replacement, which I thought was a bit odd given the age of the car. Is this normal?? I'd expect this to only be replaced much, much later during the service routine...I mean the car is practically new at 11,000 miles on the clock!

Thanks in advance,

Jacques.
 

The cylinder head cover replacement or the cylinder head cover gasket replacement?

If it's the gasket, the replacement recommendation is probably linked to the valve clearance inspection procedure.  I believe the K-series engines have a recommended valve clearance inspection at the second service and the gasket is not considered reusable.

Well that is what I thought. I can understand having to replace the gasket but the young lad was insistent it was the cylinder head 'cover'. I'm going to assume gasket as there is no way, barring a crack, deformation or some such problem of me agreeing to a head cover replacement so early on.

The kid at the garage probably hasn't got a clue what he's doing. Up to a couple of years ago I had spent about 35 years in the motor trade. I can tell you the quality of staff nowadays is dire compared to say 20 years ago. That goes for all aspects of the trade.

They want to do the valve clearance check, which means whipping the cover off so it will need a new gasket.
AFAIK the huge price for the service includes "adjusting" the clearances if required, which is a nightmare, (the cams have to come off and fit new buckets of the correct size rather than just flick the shims out like on a Gen 3 or twirl a screw like earlier cars) and actually good value if they are definitely doing them.

Most likely they only have to "adjust" one in a hundred so they have 99 people subsidising the cost of the one. (They likely won't have the required buckets in stock either....)


Best value would be ordering a gasket, then checking them yourself. If they need doing leave the old gasket and pay for the big service, if not fit the new one and just have another interim done for the stamp

Depends on whether they will give a Service Activated Warranty with an interim if they think it wants a full service and if that is important to you..

I would be surprised if the valve clearances need any adjustment after 10,000 miles. I would suggest that you ask the dealer to omit this procedure.
At one point the valve cover gasket was unavailable in the UK. As your dealer doesn't seem to know what they are dealing with, maybe it still is unavailable.