Oil change every 10k or 5k?

[Blown01NJ]

I got my first oil change at 5k miles. The maintenance meter was set to need 10k service. When I took the car in for a separate issue, they told me they would reset it and I didnt need an oil change until 15k miles. This cool?

[bcramer]

Personally, I think 10k is pushing it and that 5k is on the conservative side of things. Either way, 15k is way too long for my standards!

[Blown01NJ]

Personally, I think 10k is pushing it and that 5k is on the conservative side of things. Either way, 15k is way too long for my standards!

Maybe I worded it wrong.

I got my first ever at 5k miles. I assumed Id need another at 10k miles (or 5k miles later)

Dealer told me they would reset my service meter to remind me at 15k (or 10k since my first one)

Its a lease so whatever, I just didnt know if this was normal.

[AudiWxGuy]

Every 5-10k is good. I love when my oil is changed. The car drives soo much smoother right after.

[80sGuy]

I agree, mine drove much smoother after the initial 5K service.

[Goped220]

I due mine ever 3,000 miles with Motul X-Cess 8100 5w40.

[Doctor]

^^^^ yeap I use them as well, especially in the past...
For my service now, I chose 300V 5w40...
I change every 7000kms...

[Goped220]

Motul 300v is the best oil.

[Doctor]

thats what i think too

[Air00Max]

After my 5K oil change, my dealer also told me another oil change would not be needed until I hit 15K. I'm not real comfortable with that, but if the engine blows up, it's on Audi, not me....I just keep it topped off if it appears low.

[vroompshert]

There was a threat that I started with this subject. Since the dealer recommends changing every 10k intervals, assuming normal daily driving for the most part, I think it should be fine. I plan to start doing 5k intervals once my service warranty @ 45k is over.

[davis449]

I don't mind Castrol Syntec 5w30, so I just go to the dealer every 5K miles and have it changed. It's like paying for ever other oil change since I have an '06 with maintenance package.

[Sanjman]

c'mon... read your freakin maintenance manuals.... the 5k is your break in oil change... the manual recommends every 10k after that... but to keep your car in healthy shap... do it every 5k especially on brand new cars as the break in can last up to 15k-20k miles. I hit 35k and I think now my car is running at optimal conditions.

[shamrok]

Every 10k. Good synthetic oil doesn't break down nearly as fast as cheap dyno oil. There just isn't a reason to change oil every 3k (or even 5k) if the engine is in healthy shape and the oil is of good quality.

I used Amsoil in my old Tacoma and changed it anywhere between 12k and 20k, never a problem. Stick with 10k on the Audi just cuz of the turbo and warranty.

[Entropy333]

I would agree that synthetic doesn't break down as fast as conventional, but if I can get an extra 30,000 miles and increase my reliability by 5%, the $40 and the hour and a half it takes has been worth it at 5,000. It's small price to pay comparitively to the overall price of our cars.

On a side note, I changed my break in oil at 535 mi..and OMG it was a sparkly wonder. I have a picture on my home computer of how many brass particles were in the bottom of my oil drain pan. I can't imagine cruing around for 5000 miles with that junk in your motor.

~James

[Sanjman]

Lets not forget that our cars consume oil and have a history of oil sludge problems.... depending on your driving habits... assuming everyone has my habits or worse... 5k should be mandatory. I drive 30% local 70% highway with highway speeds of 70+

[Blown01NJ]

Im gonna stick with every 10k.

Car is a lease and thats what Audi told me to do, so whatever. Its $100 for an oil change at Audi.

[Sanjman]

Im gonna stick with every 10k.

Car is a lease and thats what Audi told me to do, so whatever. Its $100 for an oil change at Audi.

LEASE?? why do you even care then?? haha.

[tdn]

10k is perfectly fine for those engines using a completely synthetic oil and using the car for it's intended purposes. Shorter intervals have a lot to do with getting people to shell out money to places like jiffylube or mom and pop shops and to do with cars that are really pushed hard, for example a lot of track use.

There's plenty of info about this if one wants to look a little deeper. A lot of the newer engines today (and many older) can go much past 10k without any adverse effects if the vehicle is used for it's intended purpose.

[Bmeister]

It depends on how hard your use is. If you do weekend track racing, obviously change it at 5000 miles or sooner. The same goes for lots of shorter trips; if you commute 5-10 miles or are in city traffic each way every day, you should change your oil at 5000 miles.

If you do mostly highway (not the idling stop&go rush hour type of highway driving) and have long trips, then 10,000 miles is perfectly fine...on synthetic oil. On all my cars I go 5000 miles/5mos on synthetic. On my trucks I use regular oil and do 3000 mile intervals.

[Sanjman]

It depends on how hard your use is. If you do weekend track racing, obviously change it at 5000 miles or sooner. The same goes for lots of shorter trips; if you commute 5-10 miles or are in city traffic each way every day, you should change your oil at 5000 miles.

If you do mostly highway (not the idling stop&go rush hour type of highway driving) and have long trips, then 10,000 miles is perfectly fine...on synthetic oil. On all my cars I go 5000 miles/5mos on synthetic. On my trucks I use regular oil and do 3000 mile intervals.

5k is a little excessive if you are tracking it every weekend... shouldn't you change it more often????? are you saying that from experience or did you form an opinion?

[Alkemix]

check your oil regularly, maybe once a week as you get torwards the tail end of your oil life. I've heard, for A3's, that our turbo'd cars burn up a bit of oil. Make sure to keep it topped off.

[Bmeister]

5k is a little excessive if you are tracking it every weekend... shouldn't you change it more often????? are you saying that from experience or did you form an opinion?

I used to do some track weekends in the 930 (911 Turbo) and that would be 1, sometimes 2, times per month at most. After 3mos I'd have 5000 miles (and 1-4 track events) and did an oil change. This was what another Porsche owner, a Castrol engineer, recommended to those he spoke to about that. I would opine from that information that if you are hammering your engine hard every weekend, then more frequent changes would be in order or at least send the oil for analysis and gauge it from the results.

[RedS-line]

my THEORY is that 10k is too long to wait but 5k is too short. I would monitor my oil around 5k, maybe add a quart of fresh oil if needed, and monitor further. if it runs well and the oil line is high, then i would wait until closer to 10k.

[Sanjman]

I used to do some track weekends in the 930 (911 Turbo) and that would be 1, sometimes 2, times per month at most. After 3mos I'd have 5000 miles (and 1-4 track events) and did an oil change. This was what another Porsche owner, a Castrol engineer, recommended to those he spoke to about that. I would opine from that information that if you are hammering your engine hard every weekend, then more frequent changes would be in order or at least send the oil for analysis and gauge it from the results.

lol... i push my car everyday. I rush to work cuz I have an hour drive and am usually late for a meeting... keep in mind that I have no mods to my car.

[vtracer20]

i change between 3k to 5k, never over 5k. I dont care how synthetic my oil is (use mobil 1 super syn), i still dont trust putting that many miles on oil.

[Bmeister]

lol... i push my car everyday. I rush to work cuz I have an hour drive and am usually late for a meeting... keep in mind that I have no mods to my car.

Great, it's your car good luck with that. You do realize that driving your car hard in rush hour or running about town is nowhere close to being NEAR the wear & tear you get from multiple days of full-bore closed course racing, don't you? I usually use up a set of racing brakes in an event.

The guidelines I've followed regarding oil for all my cars (and trucks) and I have yet to have an internal mechanical failure in any engine among the 30+ vehicles I've owned and driven (hard). The real culprit isn't the oil breakdown as much as the combustion contaminants that eat away at your engine especially over time. No offense, but based on my life experience I'll readily take the advice from learned engineers and pass that along rather an opinion.

[VMRSport]

Every 5-7.5k miles.

[Sanjman]

Great, it's your car good luck with that. You do realize that driving your car hard in rush hour or running about town is nowhere close to being NEAR the wear & tear you get from multiple days of full-bore closed course racing, don't you?

thank you for stating the obvious... i did not mention anything about rush hour... I'm an electrical AND computer engineer... let me know if you ever need any help with custom wiring or lighting.

[Bmeister]

thank you for stating the obvious... i did not mention anything about rush hour... I'm an electrical AND computer engineer... let me know if you ever need any help with custom wiring or lighting.

___________________________
Originally Posted by Sanjman:
lol... i push my car everyday. I rush to work cuz I have an hour drive and am usually late for a meeting... keep in mind that I have no mods to my car.
___________________________

You didn't mention rush hour, but you mentioned your commute which I surmised to be when most people commute: rush hour. My misinterpretation from your remark. I hope you don't write any documentation to go with the programming or wiring schematics you design without making it obvious to those other than yourself. Can you please define for me the word "cuz" or is that an engineering term I'm not smart enough to understand?

[Unleaded20T]

Audi recommends Castrol Syntec 5w30 every 10k miles after 15k miles. You can't go wrong by going what the maintenance guide says.

[4-tified]

double post. Removed.

[4-tified]

Great, it's your car good luck with that. You do realize that driving your car hard in rush hour or running about town is nowhere close to being NEAR the wear & tear you get from multiple days of full-bore closed course racing, don't you? I usually use up a set of racing brakes in an event.

The guidelines I've followed regarding oil for all my cars (and trucks) and I have yet to have an internal mechanical failure in any engine among the 30+ vehicles I've owned and driven (hard). The real culprit isn't the oil breakdown as much as the combustion contaminants that eat away at your engine especially over time. No offense, but based on my life experience I'll readily take the advice from learned engineers and pass that along rather an opinion.

I too take my life experience with car ownership and maintenance, along with advice from engineers and engine builders, to decide when to change my oil.
That's why I am easily comfortable with 10k oil change intervals as an 'average' mileage for average use when using fully synthetic oil.

Audi, BMW, Corvette, Porsche, etc... are definitely full of qualified engineers and engine builders and they have extensive data on how long their engines will run with the recommended oil and oil change interval the actual ENGINE DESIGNERS AND BUILDERS recommend.

The oil to use and the interval to use it, is listed in your manual, use it.

I've done 3k changes, 5k changes, and 10k changes.
I also help maintain several freinds and family members cars. In over 27 years of car ownership and working on cars (it's a hobby not a profession), I've NEVER seen or experienced even 1 engine failure to due not changing the oil every 3k or 5k miles.

The longest I've continually owned and maintained a car from new was 141,000 miles. It was a 1990 Plymouth/Mitsubishi Laser/Eclipse turbo.
For the first couple of years I used regular, non synth oil and changed it every 3k miles. I then went to fully synthetic at about 26k miles, and changed every 5-7k basing it on how hard I "felt" those miles were.
At around 60k my turbo fried.
Now, some may think it was oil related.
Guess what? It was.
The oil feeder line to the turbo was partially blocked by a spiral length of metal about 4" long that appeared to block almost 50% of the oil flow.
The lack of oil, and it's lubricating and cooling qualities, eventually took it's toll on the turbo.
I put in a larger turbo, cleared the oil line, increased boost pressure, and continued with Mobil 1 oil, and increased my interval to 8-10k miles. I drove that turbo beast up to around 141,000 miles, and it still ran strong.
I typically added about 1 quart every 4-6k miles depending on if it needed it, and that was related to how hard I drove that turbo and how often and long I kept the engine spinning near it's 7k redline.

The earlier 1.8t engine had a sludge issue that was related to that engines design and it's oiling pathway.
So, the A4 does NOT have a history of sludging issues that can be attributed to the car/engine just because it's an "A4". The sludge issue was specific to a certain engine for VW and Audi.

If you really want to know how long you can go with your oil, then the only true data related method is to have your oil analyzed, perhaps every 3000 miles.
A good lab will give you real info about your engine and oil based on your driving style and the environment in which you drive.

Throwing away perfectly good oil is a waste of money and time, and worst of all, it's a waste of resource that is quite expensive these days.
3k mile oil changes, especially with fully synthetic, are the worst offenders, and it's wisdom comes from the marketing departments of oil change business.

[Bmeister]

It depends on how hard your use is. If you do weekend track racing, obviously change it at 5000 miles or sooner. The same goes for lots of shorter trips; if you commute 5-10 miles or are in city traffic each way every day, you should change your oil at 5000 miles.

If you do mostly highway (not the idling stop&go rush hour type of highway driving) and have long trips, then 10,000 miles is perfectly fine...on synthetic oil. On all my cars I go 5000 miles/5mos on synthetic. On my trucks I use regular oil and do 3000 mile intervals.

That's my original statement in this thread and it seems a few of you insinuate it's "wrong". The point missed is that there are other parameters to consider beside mileage, which of course is a simple and primary consideration.

The manufacturer recommendations are for normal use. Normal driving is where you get the engine totally warmed up to burn off excess fuel & water that inevitably mixes into your oil over time. Short trips where your engine doesn't get fully warmed (i.e. lots of idling in city traffic) are hard on engine oil with acidic buildup and fuel/water retention even with the best of oils and therefore it behooves a lesser interval.

I have 2 vehicles that might see 1,000 miles per year. Is anyone going to tell me to let that Mobil-1 sit in their pans for 10 years when 10,000 miles is up? Is my point more clear now? I'll zip off an email to a friend at Porsche requesting some non-proprietary oil analysis if you really want to drag this out. I don't opine on these kinds of things and want any information disseminated to be correct and clear.

[Sanjman]

why is it that chicago people always fight with chicago people? lol... yes... I said I rush to work... does not mean I go to work at rush hours (= rush hour means SLOW driving)... yeah rush can be used for other means beside rush hour...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_hour

AZ FTMFW...

[davis449]

You can't go wrong by going what the maintenance guide says.

Yeah you can, ever wonder why Mercedes went back to 7K intervals from 15K?

[4RingRook]

Every 5k.

[SEXICÄN]

i get mine done every 5k

[aaron1085]

i switched to using synthetic at my Audi dealer when i had my 35K checkup... i am approaching 42K. It was suggested I change my oil at 10K miles using synthetic. Does this sound right, or should it be done earlier?

[Sanjman]

i switched to using synthetic at my Audi dealer when i had my 35K checkup... i am approaching 42K. It was suggested I change my oil at 10K miles using synthetic. Does this sound right, or should it be done earlier?

well... if you have a 1.8T you are in the wrong forum... you should be asking people who have more experience with your motor... I would assume they will tell you to do it every 5k as 1.8T probably had more sludge problems than ours.