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Right after visiting my local Heroine/Audi dealer for my fix of the golden brown I have come away feeling somewhat violated and less of a man

I wanted 5 litres of the 'product' from the shady young dude with half a tache behind the counter, And after 5 minutes I was handed 'the Merchandise' in a very poosh Audi bag and relieved of a very large amount of wonga. 5 single litre bottles Audi are you taking the pishhh , but he knew I needed it and I would pay his prices

No w I know Audi state 20,000 between services but I certainly do not intend to leave a car that long no matter how good Audi's patter is. How the car uses a bit of oil when driven hard so I will be topping up but do I really need Castrol Edge Proffessional longlife III 5W - 30 ' liquid crack' ?

So given I will be changing the oil every 5,000 miles or so ( cars average yearly mileage so every 12 months at least ) I would like to know if there is a similar/better alternative to this stuff.

Oh mate! I dread to ask, but know the retail price from the dealer is £18-20 a litre!

Just paid about £9.40 a litre for a 20 litre drum, Castrol Edge 5W 30. You can get a 4 litre bottle from Opie for about £40. The plan was to provide my own oil for a forthcoming service.

20,000 miles is a joke on a 1.8 let alone a 4.2. Dads 2.0 TDi does about 12k a year so we've put it on yearly servicing, makes it easy with yearly mot and bi-yearly BFS (brake fluid service). My S4 is my weekend toy, only does about 4k a year, so I'm doing 2 year servicing.

Oh and stick to Castrol Edge.

Stick with what you have unless you get the cam chain tensioner knock on start-up, when you will need to change to 5w-40 Fuchs Pro S which is ester based and stops the knocking

I think it is important to choose the right grade of oil based on your usage, mileage, cycle and then take it from there. I do less about 5k pa mainly short journeys with one or two very long journeys and service on a yearly basis so I use a ester based 5w-40.

I got chain rattle for 1 sec max with Audi LL 5w30, changed to fixed interval and did my own oil change to 5w40 VAG spec 502.00, 505.00. Get same chain rattle for under 1 sec at cold start - no big deal.
I top up when it needs it with the same VAG spec 5w40, and it costs me £24 for 5 litres - GSF. I use around a litre every 1k miles, so I am changing the oil regularly through that, as well as changing every 10k miles.
Ester based oils still get chain rattle on cold start, so I understand.
I am happy enough that my engine is better looked after than on Audi long-life, and I believe that the oil I am getting is as good quality as the Castrol, without the label, as it is of the required spec.

I've started using Fuchs Race 5W/30. The reason for the 30 grade is that they general say that you should use the lowest grade you can get away with, so 30 instead of 40 for me.
I'm going to give Royal Purple a try at the next change - it does seem pretty impressive stuff and I do hammer my engine.

Chris.