So the main task for today was to get the truck an oil change (and replace oil and fuel filters). This exercise did not get off to a very promising start as the local company that is supposed to be the local Mercedes dealer (as told to me by an official list of Mercedes/Unimog dealers) only sells and services VWs. the fall back strategy devised by the hotel manager (and yesterdays taxi driver) was in turn, go to a friend of the managers to have the oil changed, which quickly transformed into

  • buy some oil at the local auto-parts bazzar (I will come back to this) and then

  • find a place that can actually drain and replace the oil.

The first of these tasks was actually pretty easy as the auto parts bazzar had just about everything one could imagine for cars and trucks. But I did have to remember the magic code for mercedes Benz approved oil.

The "place to drain and replace" was a bit more difficult. For a while the plan was to get someone to come to the hotel and do the change in the driveway. We eventualy found two mechanics who agreed to do this but when they arrived they convinced everyone that it would be better to go back to their workshop and do the change there. Which is what eventually happened. So by the end of the day we had changed the oil in the truck and replaced the oil filter (with a new one that I was carrying) and replaced both fuel filters with spares that I had been carrying.

The purists in the U500 email group will be horrified as the truck has operated for a little over 400 hours since the last oil change. This is the upper limit of what is recommended in the MB manual. I must admit the need for this oil change crept up on me as before leaving the US I had estimated that 400 hours would be something like 20,000 miles. But the bad roads and very slow travel speeds invalidatted this estimate. If was only just after leaving Almaty (and its Mercedes Dealer) that I realized the oil change was due and of course then I regretted ot having it done in Almaty.