No advance warning to service

[Surrey White]

My Superb has just announced that a service is due with a "Service Now" alert when I start the car.

I have had the car nearly a year, with the car being serviced by the dealer exactly a year ago. I have covered 8000 miles, mostly town driving. I don't know if it was set to fixed service or variable - in fact I don't know if variable is an option on the Superb

My Octy always warns me that service is due in xx miles starting at 900 miles, but the Superb gave no such warning - is this normal?

[Jenks]

Our Superb is on variable sevicing, It has just had its first service 17600 miles. we took it to the Winchester Motor Company. they quoted £245. We paid £235 I told them that I didn't want them to wash the car as I prefer to scratch it myself lol.

Jenks

[kprm77]

They do do variable servicing on the Superb. It should warn you that a service is due - think it should start saying about 1000 miles before. I'm sure my old Passat (B5.5) which was on fixed servicing, warned about an impending service too.

[Surrey White]

So if it should have been counting down, why did it not?

If there is a problem, I should get it into a dealer PDQ as the warranty runs out on Wednesday!

[kprm77]

I would get it to the dealer, especially if the warranty is about up. When was the last service? If it was on Variable, I think the range is something like 9000 to 20000 or 2 years max between services. Actually, I can't remember the upper level - it may be higher than that. I've been averaging 15000 / 16000 miles on vairable. My 55 reg 1.9TDi is in for it's 3rd service at 50000 miles on Tuesday (also coming to the end of the warranty!) My old 04 reg Superb came with Variable Servicing by default. Not sure when they started this.

[rotodiesel]

The standard dealer scam is to put all cars on fixed interval servicing whenever they can get away with it. It's dead easy to do via the dashboard user controls and gives them more service-generated revenue.

On variable servicing, the display should indicate "Service 1000 miles" and count down in hundreds. I haven't tried the fixed regimen but it seems likely it will just indicate that a service is due.

The whole thing is a stupid gimmick like the trip computer. Just change the oil and filter at least every 10k miles using the recommended oil (I use longlife 507.00 because my vehicle is used a lot for towing) and engine problems should be unlikely to occur - a decent long-lived diesel engine is the saving grace of the Superb.

rotodiesel.

[johannapam1]

On fixed service it counts down from 1000 miles - mine has done this for the past 2 weeks and now says service is due. It's in to dealer on wednesday 1st.

Regards

John

[Surrey White]

OK - I feel I am the victim of a dealer scam.

According to a dealer I phoned, there are three ways to set the service intervals, Variable, 10,000 miles and 1 year.

Yearly servicing gives no warning.

When I bought the car, the dealer used long life oil, silly me assumed that this meant that it would be set to variable servicing, but no, it was set to 1 year. So I have long life oil and have covered 7,200 miles on it.

I don't suppose there is anyway to get the service indicator reset retrospectively to variable?

[rotodiesel]

Reset the service indicator manually and change the oil when it has done 10k miles. Keep well out of the way of the dealers and just stick to this schedule unless your car has unusual operating conditions.

rotodiesel.

[Surrey White]

I have reset the service indicator and made a mental note to get the car serviced in the new year (when it reaches 10,000 miles).

I had the first two services on the Octy done on variable, each after 18,000 miles. Then my bottle went - this seemed far too long between services and have serviced it every 10,000 miles since. I will have to shorten this as it's only covering 2,500 miles a year now.

What service interval do you all think would be suitable for the Octy?

[Bluefox]

I have reset the service indicator and made a mental note to get the car serviced in the new year (when it reaches 10,000 miles).

I had the first two services on the Octy done on variable, each after 18,000 miles. Then my bottle went - this seemed far too long between services and have serviced it every 10,000 miles since. I will have to shorten this as it's only covering 2,500 miles a year now.

What service interval do you all think would be suitable for the Octy?

If it was me I'd go with the 10k.

Although I'm slightly old skool... 10k oil changes and 40k belt changes. I just don't trust anything or anyone

[Bluefox]

Reset the service indicator manually and change the oil when it has done 10k miles. Keep well out of the way of the dealers and just stick to this schedule unless your car has unusual operating conditions.

rotodiesel.

Agreed.

Glad to see you're still here, Roto, not seen you about recently. Thought you'd gone all jap on us already!

[skodanut]

i think the gool old fashioned service done by oneself is better if the car is going to be kept for a long time.....the only thing that wud give me a headache is the resetting of warning lights......but one can purchase a diagnostic tool that plugs in and you can do it yourself....but dont quote me on this....plus the satisfaction that the service is probably done better than a dealer who charges an extortionate ammount for a service.