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A colleague has a VW Golf petrol and is requiring a service. He has been give quotes for two types of servicing. What differs between the standard and longlife service apart from the more expensive oil?
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Standard servicing is traditional "time and distance" servicing where a service is due at a given mileage or time. This is 10,000 miles or annually on a modern VW, I believe.
Longlife servicing doesn't have fixed intervals. Instead, the interval varies, and the car tells you when it needs a service. The engine uses oil quality sensors to determine when the service is due. Requires a suitable (expensive) engine oil.
The car will be on one scheme or the other. You will need to establish which in order to work out which service you need.
VW themselves only recommend Longlife servicing if you do (and I quote)
Regular long distance driving
Driving at a constant speed with minimum vehicle and engine loading, and minimal towing
Economical driving
Cheers
DP
Edited by DP on 20/01/2009 at 14:37
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When SWMBO bought an Eos 15 months ago longlife service seemed to be the default.
The car is being used for a 40 m daily commute, some long holiday trips & the usual shopping down the road. It decided it needed a service at almost exactly 12 months & 12,000 miles.
As the last post said, fully synthetic oil is used, which VW charge you about £11 / litre for(!) Although I understand that this oil is needed for the PD diesel engine cam lobes etc.
Edited by mustangman on 20/01/2009 at 14:53
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My Golf Mk5 is 1 year old next week and it is telling me that a service is due. I thought that it was on long life sevicing, but it seems to be on a yearly service.
I'm confused!
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Mine went to 18000 in a mix of driving. (TD engine) Some debate about long term welfare of the engine with extended oil changes on synthetic oil but I'm not qualified to comment.
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Other halfs Sharan is on longlife. Currently making about 17-18K between services.
I am sure the 5K oil change brigade will be along soon to tell us tales of woe though :-)
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The touran was on long life servicing. It decided it needed a service every 18,000 miles on the dot.
The "oil quality sensors" are nothing more than a few lines of simple computer code measuring hours running and miles covered. I doubt the long life system has more than a 1000 miles leeway in its code.
The Altea (same engine) is on fixed 10k servicing. long life variable servicing is not availble on this car. Go figure.
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I am sure the 5K oil change brigade will be along soon to tell us tales of woe though :-)
Not at all - I think you guys will be fine on the long life servicing regime - anybody that can get nearly 20K miles without having their car serviced or checked is doing very well IMO and it's a credit to the VW empire (can't say VAG cos SEAT don't follow the same logic) that they make cars so robust. The more miles the better. VW are known for their engineering expertise and the strength of their engine parts so you will not have any problems at all. I think the oil sensor is in fact a wire in the engine that measures resistance and the dirtier the oil the greater the resistance and this provides the oil change data. I imagine that VW have employed huge resources to make sure this bit of wire is the strongest best engineered bit of wire they have ever made - I do believe it is not made in the same factory as the coils either - so carry on guys - I think you should try and get nearer 30K between services.
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I'm glad that my posts have turned you into a VW lover.
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I did see a new Golf today on the 4court today quizman - that is a good looking car - in all seriousness. PS - check my post on mileage being an indicator.
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I've checked your post, Pendlebury. I am really thrilled that you are now a fully paid up VW fan. I bet you have been admiring VW cars for years and have been jealous of the superior type of people who drive them. Now you have joined us, well done.
I do not like long life servicing, so I change the oil and filter myself between services. I use Castrol Edge 5W-30 and a Mann filter.
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Believe it or not quizman I am actually a VW fan in terms of design and the aesthetics of the interior. I just have a bad taste left after many problems (not any major problems) during warranty periods and being let down by the dealer in terms of fixing them. I then decided to give the Japs a go and after the reliability and fantastic service I can't bring myself to back to VW. I actually had 7 VWs on the trot so the custom was theirs to lose and I'll give them their due - they did a really good job of losing it. Once I went with the Japs and in particular Honda, I then had this strange experience of owning a car and never having to take it back for any warranty work.
I agree with your approach regarding the interim oil changes and especially the oil you use which is good - just out of interest does your interim change have any effect on the service indicator as I was being serious about the wire in the engine measuring resistance - I think it's true as it was the VW service manager that told me about it.
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I'm sorry that you have had bad service from VW dealers and I can see why you have been put off them.
I must be lucky for once in my life because my 7 year Passat and 1 year Golf have been the most reliable cars I have owned.
As I have never owned a Japanese car I can't say anything of their dealers.
IMO the service indicator is a con, there is no magic wire in the sump, they use the best oil and set the indicator for about 17500 miles. It makes them seem to cost less to own.
I looked at a Mk6 Golf today, when I was buying some gearbox oil for the Passat (yes Screwloose, I took your advice re snake oil), I noticed the sticker on the door pillar said it should be serviced every year. So it looks as if VW have dropped the extended service interval.
The Mk6 Golf is not much different to the Mk5, I was pleased about that because I don't want one now.
PS The answer to your question on another post is YES.
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I imagine that VW have employed huge resources to make sure this bit of wire is the strongest best engineered bit of wire they have ever made
Thanks for that, you owe me a keyboard!
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Thanks for that you owe me a keyboard!
>>
What did you kill it with, tea or coffee? Obviously not engineered to VW standards.
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The "oil quality sensors" are nothing more than a few lines of simple computer code
So VAG lie? Interesting assertion...
I doubt the long life system has more than a 1000 miles leeway in its code.
My wifes Audi is on Longlife and has needed a service at 13,200m (during which it was used for mosly shorter journeys during the autumn/winter), 18,600m (during which it did longer journeys through the summer).
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There is a huge range of mileages for variable servicing. I have read of A2s going just 7,000 up to over 30,000 between services depending how they are driven.
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I thought that it was on long life sevicing, but it seems to be on a yearly service.
I'm confused! >>
Quite possible that it is in fact set to the standard service schedule, not long-life.
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I'm sure there was a thread on here at some point about a VW dealer switching a car (or cars) back to fixed servicing. Obviously it's more revenue for them.
Like Vauxhall's 'ecoflex' servicing, this kind of thing was designed with fleet costs in mind IIRC.
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I think there was Marc and if you request it as a Customer then they will do it - but the default setting out of the factory/dealer is long life.
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On my 117k GolfV 1.9TDi, servicing ihas always come up at approx 18,600 miles intervals(which equates to 30k km). I changed the oil mid-service once, didn't affect the variable service interval at all. (However, my Golf does lots of long journeys, no reving when cold, never let it run low, etc so it is easy on the oil... )
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I'm sure there was a thread on here at some point about a VW dealer switching a car (or cars) back to fixed servicing. Obviously it's more revenue for them.
May have been me - When we bought my partners Sharan it was a pre reg. For some unknown reason they serviced it (it already had a PDI stamp in the book) and switched it back from longlife to time/distance. I queried it with them as one reason for choosing the VW over the Gal / Alhambra was the potential longer service intervals - car was covering about 20K a year at that point.
They switched it back at no cost, but insisted that VW were advising them to use time / distance on used sales.
Car is now 3 years old and in 50K has had no work whatsoever bar servicing, so although I intended to change it think we will hang on to it for a year or two yet.
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That does sound familiar mikeyb. Car sounds like a good one.
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I've said this before. The reason for longlife servicing is to satisfy fleet buyers who want to spend as little maintaining the vehicle during the 3 years as possible.
It's obvious that if you drive in the same fashion all the time then the service intervals will be roughly the same each time!
It's very simple to change as the dealer can plug Vagcom into the car and change it back to fixed interval servicing if you require.
My Jetta is leased so I don't really care if the engine goes bang after 3 years. However, my wife's Passat is ours and the oil is changed much more regularly! I use VW spec Comma oil from a motor factor at a very reasonable price.
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You don't need a dealer to change the service indicator to fixed servicing. If you reset the indicator following the instructions in the manual and using the dashboard controls (trip zero and clock set) the system will revert to fixed servicing. You need VAGCOM or a dealer to put it back on variable though.
Although I'm not a fan of variable servicing (I use fully synth 507.00 oil and change it every 10k miles) the system is just a little bit more sophisticated than some give it credit for. VAG use an algorithm which counts the number of cold starts, running time before warm up, time oil is above temperature limit and a number of other things, together with time and distance.
If you visit the Hella website you can see the details of the thermal sensor VAG use at present (detects oil temperature and level) together with a new generation of sensor which claims to measure the oil "quality". I'm not sure if this new sensor has appeared yet on any VAG vehicles - there seems to be some evidence that they are back-pedalling on variable servicing.
I used longlife servicing to good advantage. When buying a 2 year old vehicle, I specified an oil change and long life servicing so that dealer attention would not be required during the warranty period. Of course, once the vehicle was 3 years old, I just changed the oil - I don't need VAG software to tell me when to do this job. A nice summer's day will do splendidly.
659.
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My 105 Bhp Golf 1.9 TDI is on Longlife. Just clocked over 38k, first service came up at 18K. Expecting the service indicator to shortly flash up that it's due. Uses approx 1/2 lites of 507.00 spec oil between services.
To date it's had 2 replacement sets of fronts (Hankook 195/65/R15H) @ £52 ago, 1 set of rears, first service @ £140 and brake fluid change @ £30. Next service is £203 with cambelt, tensioner fuel filter ETC next years at 4 yrs/60K
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