Hi there
I bought a Passat TDI 130 form a dealer in March this year with 9900 miles on it, car first registered in May 05. The car was serviced at the time I bought it (VW policy to service cars that look like they'll need a service within the next 5 months). Now, after 5900 miles of steady motoring, 2500 of which touring in france (55mpg!) and the rest mainly motorway and extra-urban on flatish terrain, the dreaded service indicator light is telling me to get it serviced in 1900 miles! And here I am thinking I'd get around 18k miles before the 2nd service, not 7.8k!
So what's going on? I definitely haven't driven the car in a way that merits a service after only 7.8k, so there's either a fault or the garage didn't reset the service flag when they did the service. I called the garage up and they said '..........possibly a glitch, bring it in and we'll reset it' Hmmm......if they do that, and don't change the oil at the same time, will the car still monitor the existing oil properly or will it be confused and let the car run with nackered oil later on? Is it possible for me to detemine whether or not they did or didn't reset the service flag at 9900 miles? (just so I know the score).
Your advice appreciated
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It doesn't monitor the oil at all-the ECU works out the service intervals from your driving styles,number of cold-starts etc..
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They forgot to reset the variable service indicator thingy, Either that or they cant reset it. Exactly the same thing happened to my Touran. It was reallocated to me with a lowish mileage and the garage did a service at the 8k mark as part of that process. It then pinged up at around the 18k mark say it needed servicing.
The remedy is to take it back to the garage, and ask them to reset it. you are of course then out of kilter, as it thinks its been serviced and will not ping up till the next 18kish miles but in effect you would have done 18k+6k miles.
YOu could of course have it reset to a traditional miles based service schedule, 18k between services is probably too long anyway.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thanks for that ic2 and TVM.
I think what I'll do is have it reset but stick with the 'Longlife' regime and accept that the car is 6k out of kilter. Then I'll have it serviced at 25k miles, and so will have done 15k since the first service. I agree that 18k high, so instead of waiting for the service flag to pop up at the next variable mileage point I'll get the third service done after another 15k miles.
I don't like the idea of the 10k fixed service - far too expensive when I'm being charged labour at over £100 +VAT. The lowering of maintenance costs using the longlife regime is one of the things that makes these cars appealing. The lack of professionalism at some of the dealers though almost balances it out though!
Thanks again
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I doubt very much they even bothered to service it before they sold it to you. There's no way of proving either way, apart from their word, and your discussion with them about resetting the light they supposadly 'forgot' kind of says it all really.
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It clearly states on the Volkswagen site under how the service intervals work that the oil is monitored by sensors. False advertising if it is not. When i brought my car in January i was sold that if the service light came on within the first 3 months of me owning the car they would service the car for nothing. I went to another dealer (closer to home) when i had a problem about the body work and asked about how the service light works and he asked when i purchased it and was told that it's part of some law that it should be serviced before i brought it (oil changed) 3 weeks later the service light came up so it's going for a service next week. It's done then and forgotten about. He also said that the oil is monitored.
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I've had my 115 PD TDI Passat since new and have now covered over 90,000 miles. The service indicator has ALWAYS come on at between 8,500 and 9,500 miles for EVERY service and I do loads of long journeys (200 miles) and not many short ones!
Makes me wonder if this "flexible service interval" malarkey is a loat of pink fluffy slippers?
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You can't be on flexible servicing. It appears that you are on time/distance servicing which is every 10,000 miles.
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You can't be on flexible servicing. It appears that you are on time/distance servicing which is every 10,000 miles.
Fair point GM, but from memory (which is probably a bit dodgy) I thought that by default, VW's were all on flexible servicing unless you specifically asked for it to be otherwise?
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Fair point GM, but from memory (which is probably a bit dodgy) I thought that by default, VW's were all on flexible servicing unless you specifically asked for it to be otherwise?
Definitely on flexible - I was in the workshop when they were doing the service and they showed me. My memory agrees with nick62 - on flexible unless customer asks for fixed.
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I've had my 115 PD TDI Passat since new and have now covered over 90,000 miles. The service indicator has ALWAYS come on at between 8,500 and 9,500 miles for EVERY service and I do loads of long journeys (200 miles) and not many short ones! Makes me wonder if this "flexible service interval" malarkey is a loat of pink fluffy slippers?
Sounds to me like you're on the fixed interval!
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It clearly states on the Volkswagen site under how the service intervals work that the oil is monitored by sensors
It can say what it likes, thats not the way it works. If you consider the temperature sensor is being used thats about as far as it goes.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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When it's in for a service next week i'll ask them to point out where the sensors are and what exactly do they monitor. I'll make sure they try not to fob me off with showing me the pressure switch but looking on the oil filter housing there are 2 or is it 3 sensors. So what do they do? And for VW to say that there is something fitted that is not is against the law and comes under false advertising!
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I've heard that some dealers switch off the monitors so the punter has to have the oil changed every 10,000. Not necessarily a bad thing, if you pay for the VW505.01 oil, not the more expensive 506.01. I suppose the ideal for the dealer is someone who thinks they are on variable, pays for the 506.01 oil at inflated price, but throws it away every 10,000:)
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My daughter has a Seat Ibiza (a VW Polo in different skin) and that came set on 10,000 mile service interval, which is perfect for her, as that's spot on her annual mileage.
She wanted to get the VAG service/maint/tyres package, which for 3 yrs/36000 miles was £20/mth. Because she did that, I fully expected the car to come with variable servicing so it might need less servicing and I was all set for an argument with the dealer.
The dealer told me the servicing regime is selectable, but they 'don't send them out' on variable servicing unless requested.
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So far as I know the VW's just use a temperature sensor in the sump to measure the thermal load on the oil - don't think there are any other sensors.. This is combined with other data (fuel consumption, number of cold starts) to determine the service interval. The service interval correlates mostly to fuel consumption.
So years ago BMW used complex algorithms with lots of input variable to calculate service interval - then they found out that the result was pretty close to fuel consumption - so that is what their variable service system now uses.
Personally I don't believe in longlife servicing (at least not if it is a car I paid for). Interestingly VW turn off the long-life servicing for cars shipped to the US - I wonder if stronger consumer protection laws puts them off?
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Personally I don't believe in longlife servicing (at least not if it is a car I paid for). Interestingly VW turn off the long-life servicing for cars shipped to the US - I wonder if stronger consumer protection laws puts them off?
VW had a lot of problems in the US with sludging causing engine failures, as apparently similar oils in the US are not the same quality as oils in Europe.
MB dropped variable servicing in the US a couple of years ago, and have suggested they'll drop it here soon too (fleets, and some private owners, don't like the unpredictability of the current system). MB cars use a dielectric sensor for oil quality - it basically measures the falling resistance as the oil quality deteriorates and changes it into a capacitance value.
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Oil degradation correlates with two things - temperature and contamination. Turbo-diesels are a particular problems (because of the hot turbo and the higher levels of soot and acid contamination).
Numerous sensors have been developed to monitor oil quality, using surface acoustic waves, permittivity, change of dielectric value etc etc. Some years ago I got involved in developing one using infra-red transmission. Basically as the level of contamination increases the transmission falls.
The MB ASSYST system uses a capacitance device that changes impedance (falls) as contamination increases.
The snag with all of these systems is that the oil quality sensors are not cheap and they have not proven particularly reliable. Moreover, research has shown that oil quality correlates quite closely to fuel consumption - i.e. if the fuel consumption is high (indicative of arduous driving) then contamination is likely to be high. This is obviously a much cheaper technique than using a quality sensor because it can all be done in software. Coupled with a cheap oil temperature sensor (a thermistor) gives a reasonable estimate of oil condition. Factor in a safety margin and you should be OK for the average owner.
In the longer term I think we are going to see a push toward long-life servicing - particularly in the US. This will probably be for environmental reasons. I think the US uses about 1 billion gallons (or could be litres?) of oil a year for oil changes. Halving that would save a lot of oil and halve the disposal problem.
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The dealer told me the servicing regime is selectable, but they 'don't send them out' on variable servicing unless requested.
I think your dealer's got it wrong - everything 'official' on this that I've seen states that longlife is the norm and the customer must ask to be put on fixed. What's worrying is that there is the possibility of the garage leaving it on variable interval and using the PD oil, which is meant for the 10k fixed interval.
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I thought they used an infrared sensor?
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Seems that the system was not reset as has been said though of most relevance is how often it should be serviced and based on the mileage you are doing I would say an oil change every 10,000 miles or about nine months max.
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I doubt very much they even bothered to service it before they sold it to you. There's no way of proving either way, apart from their word, and your discussion with them about resetting the light they supposadly 'forgot' kind of says it all really.
Definitely changed the oil, I checked it when I picked the car up and it was nice and clean.
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Was it the Maxi or the Allegro that had an "oil change sensor"?;it supposedly measured the pressure drop across the filter-after a couple of month's production,it was quietly dropped.
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