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Valve lash checks are a lot like tire balancing. With new tires you SHOULD rebalance within 5 kmiles. After that I always look for symptoms before rebalancing.
With a new engine the valves may not wear exactly evenly and one does not know how they were intitially adjusted as far as the range of acceptable specs. I would probably do a very careful valve adjustment at the first recommended interval, but I would set the valves to exactly the maximum spec, as long as I KNEW they would wear to a smaller spec. Once you did that the I would check them at twice the recommended interval and compare the specs to my original maximum adjustment.
Now you know what to expect. If your 30k (second @ 45k total) check showed no significant change in spec then you can predict foreward the mileage when that spec will indeed be at a minimum. My 73 Alfa GTV checked to EXACTLY 1 thousandth wear, 100,000 miles after the only adjustment it ever had, by me. An adjustment was an 8 hour job (pull the cams and buckets, measure shim and replace with correct dimension) I was not going to do if I could avoid it and I sold the car with that 100k old valve adjustment that was .001 under MAX spec on every valve.
Since most repair shops charge the same for a check versus an adjustment and knowing my VX's valves were all easily in spec at 62k without ever having been adjusted (did them when I sold the car), I think 15k valve "check" intervals are just lining some commission tech's pockets for 5 minutes work, removing the valve cover and using the minimum spec feeler gauge to quickly "check" versus adjusting to maximum.
regards
Mech
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