I have a 2.0 litre 140 diesel Elegance on 05 plate. I do a steady 60-70 mile round trip five days a week, minimal short trips. Annual mileage is about 18,000.

Would variable servicing be worthwhile?

Thanks

Hi,

There a PDF on VW UK site about service long life or the normal. From what I've read in press etc advice if you plan on keeping the car get it on yearly changes. was only done for fleets that get rid of cars or a few % of people.

Anyway below copied form VW PDF

"I am not sure which service regime is best for me.

The choice or regime can be dependent on how the car is driven and the conditions of

use, It is impossible to state any hard and fast rules. However, if you are not sure,

Volkswagen recommends that your car be set to the factories default of the LongLife

regime. The service indicator will tell you when the first service is due. Your

Volkswagen Retailer or repairer will then discuss the best regime suitable for you to

adopt. To help you identify which regime may be best for you, please refer to the

following guidance.

LongLife Regime.

To obtain the most benefit from the LongLife service regime, the car should to be

generally driven in a style/condition of use listed below:

• Mainly longer distance journeys

• Limited number of cold starts, engine is kept at operating temperature over a

longer period of time.

• Daily mileage above approx. 25 miles.

• Constant speed.

• Vehicle used regularly.

Time/Distance Regime.

It your car is driven in a style if listed below, it may be more appropriate to opt for the

Time and Distance regime

• Extremely uneconomical driving style ie continual maximum acceleration ie. ‘foot to

floor’.

• Vehicle fully loaded.

• Mainly short journeys.

• Frequent cold starts.

• Frequent hill climbs.

• Frequent towing.

• City centre driving.

For further information concerning the servicing regimes, please consult your

Volkswagen Retailer or repairer for full details."

The link is hear:

Volkswagen Servicing Plans : Volkswagen UK

The link is hear:

Volkswagen Servicing Plans : Volkswagen UK

And this gives you even more detail (link within the link)

Longlife servicing.pdf

I prefer safety first. Once out of warranty and if you're keeping the car for as long as possible, put it on fixed servicing and (if you can afford it) change the engine oil & filter at least every 6k miles or 6 months whichever's soonest. Don't skimp on oil quality either... and ideally, don't use supermarket fuel, if petrol, as its usually cr*p.

I have a 2.0 litre 140 diesel Elegance on 05 plate. I do a steady 60-70 mile round trip five days a week, minimal short trips. Annual mileage is about 18,000.

Would variable servicing be worthwhile?

Thanks

My driving is simillar, and my car is on variable. My car is now just over 3 years old and just coming upto 70K miles and has now had 3 visits to the dealer for servicing. I have had no issues with regard to component failure in this time and the car uses no oil now, and fuel economy is good. By using the variable regime I have saved approx £500 in three years with no ill effects.

I almost always run on supermarket fuel because its more convienient to fill up at my local supermarket.

I can't say supermarket fuel has ever caused me any problems either.

Enjoying my 5p/L off vouchers and Double Clubcard points at the moment

diesel is diesel, supermarket stuff is normally fine, I find its only the petrol that tends to be iffy

I think you'd be just right for variable. But follow the advice given in the links above to be sure.

As for variable v fixed, there's probably a hundred threads on this website about this subject, and there's still no agreement.

Personally, as long as your driving suits what VAG say is best for variable, then use variable and worry about something else like the rainforests or Iraq or something.

VAG have designed the car at the end of the day and they say variable is ok in certain conditions. Why try to 2nd guess them, when they have made all sorts of other similar judgements that you'll never have any input into?!

I plan on keeping my car for years, but by the time it fails due to engine wear because I've been on variable, I expect it'll only be worth a grand anyway! (Hope I never eat those words!!)

If your driving us suitable to variable, don't fear it, I say. I mean, I'm not about to start changing my brake fluid twice as often, or the Haldex oil, so why 2nd guess VAG on engine oil??

I think as long as you are following VAG advice to the letter, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it.

I do variable services at the main dealer and then get an extra oil change every 9-10k miles.

This means I keep the service history and the car makes it into the dealer every 20k miles, but the extra oil change is done using the VW507 at a lower cost place (eg VAT garage or DIY).

That way you still get most of the cost saving of variable servicing and most of protection of fixed servicing (Assuming the VW507 5w-30 gives the same protection as the VW505.1 they use on fixed servicing for cars without a DPF. This being a mute point for DPF cars as it's VW507 regardless).

My dad bought Octavia 2.0 tdi 18 months ago. He is old, retired and uses the car 1 or 2 times a week probably 60 miles a week. Very occasional journies to visit family further away. Does 6000m a year. Dealer advised him to have long life service, I advised him annual fixed servicing, he went back to the dealer (Deans, Dumfries) who stood by their advice which I cannot understand.

Is there any concrete evidence to suggest that cars running on variable have a shorter life/more component failure though? I remember reading about this a while back and it seemed that the evidence was sketchy at best.

It seemed to me that the problems with variable could often easily be explained by people being on variable when their driving style/cummute meant they should really be on fixed (I think it's a mistake that VAG seem to default to variable without consulting the customer, but that's another thread!).

My dad bought Octavia 2.0 tdi 18 months ago. He is old, retired and uses the car 1 or 2 times a week probably 60 miles a week. Very occasional journies to visit family further away. Does 6000m a year. Dealer advised him to have long life service, I advised him annual fixed servicing, he went back to the dealer (Deans, Dumfries) who stood by their advice which I cannot understand.

I guess it's possible that if the car doesn't need servicing until the 2 year limit, it would be on 12k according to your figures, which is greater than the fixed service limit.

Given that his trips are 15-30 miles each on average (I'm assuming one journey out, one back), he's borderline for variable really.

It could vary a lot depending on what the exact usage is, but it strikes me from what data you have given, the dealer may not actually be way off the mark?

Even though he doesn't use the car often and does a low weekly mileage, it appears that when he does use the car, he does a reasonable mileage, so his per-trip mileage might just be ok for variable.

It's still borderline really though!!

I guess it's possible that if the car doesn't need servicing until the 2 year limit, it would be on 12k according to your figures, which is greater than the fixed service limit.

Given that his trips are 15-30 miles each on average (I'm assuming one journey out, one back), he's borderline for variable really.

It could vary a lot depending on what the exact usage is, but it strikes me from what data you have given, the dealer may not actually be way off the mark?

Even though he doesn't use the car often and does a low weekly mileage, it appears that when he does use the car, he does a reasonable mileage, so his per-trip mileage might just be ok for variable.

It's still borderline really though!!

I suspect that in this case the question is really going to be whether or not the oil has a timed life, as well as a mileage/cold starts life.

I suspect that in this case the question is really going to be whether or not the oil has a timed life, as well as a mileage/cold starts life.

True enough, I didn't really factor that in.

My gut feeling though is that I don't think variable is quite as crazy an option as it might first seem, even if it's probably 50:50 at best as to which scheme is actually better?

Although he is 73 he is still fairly fit so walks the mile or so for his daily paper and bits of shopping. For the main weekly shop it's a 20 mile drive to Dumfries so I guess the car tends to get properly warmed up and it's a decent A road journey not stop start. So some weeks the car is only out once. Such a waste of a nice car.