Service indicator mileage

[JohnS4]

Sorry if this has been answered before but I couldn't find a definite answer in the archives.

At the start of November I had my Jun 2001 S4 (B5) serviced at 38000 miles and the invoice mentioned long life service and they used Castrol SLX oil, but the service indicator was reset to 9300 miles. When I questioned the dealer because I expected it to be nearer 20000 miles until the next service I was told they are always set to 9300 after the service and it will go up to a higher figure after driving it for a bit. 2 months later and about 1000 fairly lesiurely miles it now says 7100 miles whereas I was expecting it to be 18000 or so.

Is what the dealer told me true or is there something wrong ?

A collegue of mine who has a B6 2.5 TDI has recently had a similar experience.

Thanks,
John

[Dippy]

John,

I can only partially answer your question.

What you are seeing is correct for your DIS configuration, although whether or not the configuration is correct is a good question.

It has not been 'set to 9300', it has been 'reset' with a default figure of 9300. That means that although it is variable (so will reduce according to conditions), the maximum is 9300.

I think this effectively means that you are NOT set for AVS. There are various changes you can make to the DIS configuration, but I'm afraid that I have never investigated them enough.

My car is setup the same as yours. Since I change my oil more regularly than 9300 miles (usually about half of this), it does not worry me. Actually I often forget to reset the SI, so either it has never run out on me so far or it doesn't alarm when it does!

Please note that there is a world of difference between your engine and the more mundane ones such as your colleague's TDI. The 2.7bT is a highly complex machine, and unfortunately the little turbos it uses are rather 'fragile'. I strongly recommend that you ignore AVS and get an oil change done at LEAST every 10,000 miles.

[JohnS4]

Thanks for the reply.

As you say, it probably makes sense to get the oil changed sooner anyway. I haven't found my Audi dealer to be very informative when asking them anything remotely technical as you only get to speak to the service desk reception and they seem very good at coming up with excuses but not very helpful.

I was previously using mobil 1 for topping up the oil and now they have filled it with Castrol SLX, can I continue to use Mobil 1 for topping up or is it a bad idea to mix oils ?

[Morpheous]

Sounds like your on fixed and Not variable service.
Adaption channels in the dash insert are set when you are on AVS i.e max days is set to 720 and max miles to 20,000, you MUST use the correct oil if you are on AVS and only top up with this oil, although in an emergency, you can use normal oil upto a max of .5 ltr. Any more will require an oil drain (if AVS to continue).

Fixed service is set to 360 days and 10,000 miles max values in the adaption channels. The quality of oil is also set in an additional channel depending if its on AVS or Fixed.

Mine is set to fixed for the same reasons Dippy has indicated.
Although I always use an AVS oil...SLX Formula.