20k oil life has always been a debate in its self. i for one dont accept that oil lasts in a diesel for 20 K safely and certainly not 50K or 5 years.

in fact recently i have noticed that the oil in my wifes Fiesta 1.6TDCI seems to deteriorate afetr 6 months and the fuel economey starts to drop untill the oil is changed and the same thing happened on my freelander2.

The car is cheap becuase it has no service history! what will happen when you want to pass it on ? and if a warranty issue ever arises although its a 2007 there will never be a good will gesture.

Why ask for our opinion when 2 of us have said walk but you don't think anythings wrong.

Oh I'm sorry but Ive only been in the trade 35 years, should of known better really that someone down the pub will know better

The Royce Royce engineer is talking nonsense, the oil will be packed full of contaminants at that mileage the detergent and anti-sludge packages would be well past their sell-by dates, the oil filter will be on full bypass as it'll be blocked and of course the warranty wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on as Injection Doc said.

We only stretch cars to 20K intervals now to keep the company car/lease-buyer bean-counters happy. The oil is well shot by that stage, the reason we get away with it is because modern engines are manufactured to such excellent standards. Changing the oil more often will greatly extend the service life of any engine. Service intervals are set to the least number required to get cars through the warranty period in one piece. A petrol-engined car might (might!) get through such an ordeal unscathed, but a diesel engined car kills its oil much quicker due to soot contamination.

I'd buy that Golf if it was half price - other than that, I'd walk away.

659FBE, A large American oil company I worked for spent a amount of money testing competitors' fully synth oils before developing and bringing their offering to the market. All brands of oil were severely compromised viscosity-wise by 5,000 miles - except Mobil 1 which was by far the best oil on the market; “Our” oil joined the list of also-rans despite the millions of dollars spent and the fancy claims on the packaging. No oil lasts anywhere near 20K miles (in terms of staying in grade) let alone 30+K miles - not even Mobil 1. And that's before you consider the degrading of the various chemical packages which are there to control oil acidity, particle suspension etc.The lubricative properties of oil has actually declined in recent years as we've added more chemical stabilisers to stretch service intervals as well as removing the oils' greatest friend and safety net - zinc - as it contaminates catalytic converters, these factors along with the general drop in viscosity to enable the use of built-down-to-a-price batteries and starter motors as well as improving fuel efficiency haven't helped matters either. If we built engines to modern exacting standards but serviced them the old-fashioned way with proper, thick, additive-free oil changed frequently I wouldn't be surprised if they'd all rack up 1,000,000 miles!

Yes this car may well be fine depending on the average road conditions it's been driven in - but the oil won't be - VW superbrew or not. it won't be a nicely bedded in PD, it'll be a one good thrash away from exploding PD until you change the oil. If the car has been warmed up properly and has generally trundled up and down motorways at sane speeds, the engine will probably be fine as there's very little wear given that usage profile, you could almost lube an engine with water in those driving conditions. Any stressful engine loads and the oil will breakdown leading to rapid wear (probably big ends) and possible catastrophic engine failure.

I agree with Steve Lee's comments about Oil. I too have seen Mobil 1 tested against other oils at a well known research centre on numerous occasions and nothing else comes close. I also used to drive a Carlton 3.0 24v GSi and would Tow a twin Axel caravan down to the south of France. When in exceptional heat the oil light would flicker at idle when stopping at the tolls. The handbook stated this was normal. Over several years I used different oils to compare but one year I used mobil 1 and in temps of 40+ and having been driving for over 11 hours the oil pressure used to remain at over 1.5 bar at Idle. That was enough to convince me too.

Oils are not capable of lasting the period to full effect but the manufactures use the high mileage intervals to sell cars ! They dont care what happens to the car when its over 60K+ miles.