I know a Mercedes mechanic who said he would never go with the service intervals indicated for any Benz, including the SLK. He said his take was that the manufacturers put in these inflated intervals becaue (on the Benzes) they pay for maintenance for 4 years / 50K miles. It saves them money if they extend the interval. He said with synthetic oil, he'd go to 5,000 miles. Just a thought. I don't plan on running this Crossfire out to 7,500 miles before a change. By the way, he thought it was funny that Chrysler is using a 7,500 mile interval, whereas Mercedes uses 10K as their interval for the same engine.