I have bought a Octavia TDI from Trade Sales of Slough which I pick up this Saturday, and would like to know how you determine if the car is on variable or fixed servicing

I would have thought that this would be shown in the vehicle's service book, but as it is ex company and from a car supermarket I am aware that this is not always supplied with the vehicle.

I have spoken to three seperate dealers who have been useless and simply said that they did not know, one was slightly more helpfull and stated that if the car was supplied as a company / rental car, it was more than likely that it would be on variable servicing

If the car's got a fair few miles on it, then the service intervals to date should be indicative - if it's been serviced every 10k miles/annually then it'll be on fixed, if it's longer than it'll be on variable.

There are other ways to tell, but I can't remember what they are!

Rob.

I think you can interrogate it with a VAG COM, otherwise it is anyone's guess if the documentation is not supplied.

The car is only 15 months old and has carried out 13,000 miles. The dealer are stating that the car has not reached it's first service yet but I have not been able to see the service book and therefore have only to take their word on it. As they sell 1000's of cars every week of all makes, I doult if they are an expert in VAG servicing !!!

If the service book is supplied, how will I know which serving regime the car is on?

The Delivery Inspection record on page 11 of the Service Schedule should say when the next service is due. Mine says 'Next service at 20,000* miles - Date 26-03-2004* - *variable. As Q has said, the ECU can be interrogated by a Skoda Dealer or someone with a VAG-COM to confirm what the service interval is set to.

VAG-COM owners might like to have a look at Ross-Tech's 'VW Service Interval Reminders' here and then check the settings for their own cars. It would also be useful if one of our resident Skoda technicians could confirm whether the adaption values in Ross-Tech's info apply to current Skodas as well.

I found the dealers always put the wrong interval in my service book - there is a reference that you can check on the sticker that has all the car details - reffered to in the manual - it tells you if it a variable service or not

if you need more info message me and I'll look it up

I found the dealers always put the wrong interval in my service book - there is a reference that you can check on the sticker that has all the car details - reffered to in the manual - it tells you if it a variable service or not

Presumably you are referring to the presence of QG1 or QG2 on the vehicle data sticker which indicate that the car is LongLife Service capable. My understanding is that cars in that category come from the factory set for QG1 by default' date=' ie extended service intervals. [u']However[/u] it is not unknown for dealers to reset cars to QG2 - ie fixed service intervals - on the PDI without reference to the new owner. Additionally, owners can request that cars be put on fixed service intervals when they take delivery or at a later date. To muddy the waters further, if 1/2 litre (IIRC) or more of non LongLife oil is used for topping up purposes between services in a car set for variable service intervals, the car automatically reverts to fixed service intervals. So the only way to confirm the service interval is to interrogate the ECU as I indicated earlier.

Where oil for Skoda's is concerned, Denis is...