[TorqueDog]

Fair, although the worst thing you're likely going to do by servicing a vehicle earlier than recommended is burn money.

A lot of what curves2000 is saying is not entirely out to lunch in my view, having worked in the industry once upon a time.

Lower cost of ownership is one reason for extending service intervals, but also consider for higher-end brands that they often include maintenance packages on all their new vehicles. It's a lot cheaper to tell your customer you'll do their maintenance free of charge if you've extended the service interval to be maybe once a year, and the customer thinks "this is awesome, I barely have to take this thing in for maintenance!", and by the time the extending of the maintenance schedule actually has implications for good mechanical operation of the vehicle, the thing is out of warranty and on its third or fourth owner.

Plenty... PLEEEENTY of decisions in the automotive industry are made in service of maximizing profit even if it may yield a higher failure on vehicles in the field. It's just a matter of nailing the calculation to ensure that those failure rates don't get too high until the manufacturer can wipe their hands of the financial liability for the repairs.