On Dec 8, 12:35*pm, Clive George wrote:
On 08/12/2011 11:27, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article
,
* * *wrote:
Really tight torlearnces and beter materials and beter design and
synthetic oils have pushed oil changes from 3000 miles (BMC A series) to

As fitted to the Marina, Maestro and Metro, the main service interval
(with 1980's oils) was 12,000 miles without any intermediary interval.

That was the A plus version. Not the same as the earlier A Series. The A
series engine had more variants than many had hot dinners.

Yes, I had a 1275 in a Metro and a Maestro. The latter one was actually
pretty good - 130K miles with no grief and still working well.

(My sister then got the car, and a similar one at the same time via her
boyfriend's mum. Mine was dented, hammerited, had done 130K, the other
one had less than half the miles and was still shiny. She mistook shiny
for capable and retired mine (to banger racing IIRC), then discovered
that a car which has been pottering round the shops all its life ends up
with no performance.)

The perfomance gains, after degumming the rings and properly bedding
them in, with a 1.3 Maestro were what convinced me to use at least a
good semi-synthetic in all oil changes. Could pretty much out-
accelerate any regular car including an XR2 at least up to 60mph. B-
road overtaking was easy in 3rd gear. Quiet at 85mph and returned
around 55mpg. I found it ideal for winding narrow roads. I could also
start it at 5 degC without choke and between -8 and 0 with just 1/4
way on the choke control. There are a few little other tricks to turn
such an indifferent machine into a flyer, and the point is, they are
all cheap or no cost.