OIL CONSUMPTION IN NEW PASSAT 1.9TDI

Hi
Having just taken delivery of a new VW Passat 1.9 TDI which has been factory filled with long life oil designed for 20,000 miles my attention has been drawn to a technical report on a Skoda 1.9 diesel the engine of which is, I understand, identical to that in the Passat. The report states that these engines are filled with synthetic (long life)lubricant on the production line which can prevent the oil rings bedding in unless the engines are revved hard regularly. This can result in such heavy oil consumption that the owner might top up with the equivalent of 4 to 6 oil changes in 20,000 miles which at £13 a litre would cost £400 in oil over 20,000 miles.
The report states that oil consumption of up to 650 miles a litre is considered "acceptable". I would not find that very acceptable. The VW Passat owner’s manual states that oil consumption can be up to 1.0 litres/1000km
I find the above report to be very disturbing. I have never before owned a car that burned oil at anything approaching that rate even after 70 or 80000 miles.
Has anyone found a way to reduce oil consumption in the Passat eg. by heavy revving as suggested above or is it something that has to be lived with?
Is there any technical reason why I should not replace the long life oil with regular oil if the former is preventing the oil rings from bedding in properly. ?
Could I top up with regular oil and make a complete change at say 10000 miles?
Suggestions or comments would be welcomed.
Thank you.

I was just in at my vw/audi specialist this morning and there was a very sorry looking guy in there with a beautiful looking audi A4 estate, 2 years old, which had run out of oil and is now knackered! At least you've realised yours will burn oil and so can top it up.

The mechanic reckoned that this new 20,000 mile servicing is v. bad news for cars, but is proving to be great for garages! He thinks that the best bet is to do an oil/filter change every 10,000 not with long life, but with the appropriate high quality PD engine oil. I think he's absolutely right. If there's one thing that's guaranteed to wreck a deisel engine, it is not changing the oil/filter regularly enough.

I think the reasons they've all gone for the 'variable servicing/long life' are:

1) To a business, cost wise, you only have to service your car/fleet 1/2 as many times; and
2) The problems don't become apparent until after the warranty period and the main dealers couldn't care less then, as we the owners pay, not them!

I think your best bet is to find a VW/Audi Specialist (NOT main dealer) and run it past them.

Good luck!

Many thanks for your reply. In the absence of any sound technical reason for staying with the long life oil (which may not be doing the engine any good at all) I intend to switch to good quality PD engine oil at the earliest opportunity.
In fact I only do about 4000 miles per annum and my intention is to change the oil once per year irrespective of what mileage I have covered and to change the oil filter every 8 to 10000 miles.
I do appreciate your interest.
Thank you

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Originally Posted by mac500

Many thanks for your reply. In the absence of any sound technical reason for staying with the long life oil (which may not be doing the engine any good at all) I intend to switch to good quality PD engine oil at the earliest opportunity.
In fact I only do about 4000 miles per annum and my intention is to change the oil once per year irrespective of what mileage I have covered and to change the oil filter every 8 to 10000 miles.
I do appreciate your interest.
Thank you

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Personally, and for the sake of a few quid I would suggest you change the oil filter when you change the oil..........I always do.

I worked as a salesman at a skoda dealer and always informed customers buying a new car that if their daily mileage was less than 25 per day then there was no point in having long life oil in anyway as the service indicator would still probably come on at around 10k intervals.
I have a passat which has done 90k in 3 years and has always used pd oil not long life, my advice is to keep clear of the long life stuff. With reagrd to running in drive it hard from day one, I did it with all my new demos and I can tell you I did not have to top up the oil as much as my colleague who drove his car like miss daisy!

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Originally Posted by Gaz the Cab

Personally, and for the sake of a few quid I would suggest you change the oil filter when you change the oil..........I always do.

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Thank you. You are quite right. I will change the filter each time I change the oil. I had a Mercedes 300D and the oil and filter changes were at 6000 miles or once a year.

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Originally Posted by glynnd

I worked as a salesman at a skoda dealer and always informed customers buying a new car that if their daily mileage was less than 25 per day then there was no point in having long life oil in anyway as the service indicator would still probably come on at around 10k intervals.
I have a passat which has done 90k in 3 years and has always used pd oil not long life, my advice is to keep clear of the long life stuff. With reagrd to running in drive it hard from day one, I did it with all my new demos and I can tell you I did not have to top up the oil as much as my colleague who drove his car like miss daisy!

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Many thanks. I intend to switch to pd oil but am undecided as to when I should make the switch. I presume that it would be wrong to top up the long life oil with pd oil and make a complete change over at say 5000 miles. It seems a waste to drain off and dump this very expensive long life oil without getting some value from it. I have never bought the stuff and don't know what it costs but I have seen a figure of £13/litre quoted. I will probably make the change when I the first top up is due which will probably be at less than 1000 miles.

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Originally Posted by mac500

Many thanks. I intend to switch to pd oil but am undecided as to when I should make the switch. I presume that it would be wrong to top up the long life oil with pd oil and make a complete change over at say 5000 miles. It seems a waste to drain off and dump this very expensive long life oil without getting some value from it. I have never bought the stuff and don't know what it costs but I have seen a figure of £13/litre quoted. I will probably make the change when I the first top up is due which will probably be at less than 1000 miles.

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Make the switch sooner rather than later as the running in characteristics are different with long life and pd oil

Before you switch to PD oil from check if you have a DPF (particulate filter, the manual states you HAVE to use SLX III longlife (vw 507.00) oil if you have DPF, the ash from PD oil will damage the filter. BTW it also says don't use Biodiesel if you have DPF. The only way I know of to check if you have DPF is to look at the sticker in the fuel cap cover, if it say's Don't use Biodiesel it has DPF.

Roy

I thought vw recommends the use of bio on any pd unit post 1996?