Doh!

According to the service manual for our Octy vRS, the car was setup from new for variable servicing. Previous owner seems to have been unaware of this and had the car serviced after 1 year. It was then serviced a year later by the dealership we bought it from. Now they are saying it's due for it's yearly service.

Reading the service manual I discovered it needs a specific oil to be able to run on variable servicing and given the circumstances I doubt this is the case.

Now, is it worth continuing with the annual services - in which case the service indicator on the dash is probably set up incorrectly - or asking the dealer to carry out a service using the correct oil for variable servicing and resetting the service indicator accordingly?

I know variable services cost more but if they are carried out every 2 years or according to the dashboard display it looks like we'll save money.

Any thoughts?

James

When you take it in for its next service you can have the long life oil put in and switch back to the variable scheme. If you are not doing a load of miles then it could work out well for you as you will end up having bi-annual services.

The dash should be reset to whatever you want at that time by your dealer.

Cheers for that, Ross - we do less than 10,000 miles a year so would definitely benefit from the variable servicing.

James

bought mine used 39k on the clock 2001 model. service book looks like it sniffed the garage a couple of times and it was serviced and mot'd when i bought it last feb.i have just presumed it was variable and i will book it in when the car tells me too. is this right or wrong?probably wrong place to post the next point but when should i worry about cam belts and is it something the dealer tells me to about when the time is near?car now on 46k.

thanks

.... when should i worry about cam belts and is it something the dealer tells me to about when the time is near?car now on 46k.

thanks

The toothed belt for the camshaft drive on the 1.8T should be changed every 120,000 miles according to the Service Schedule. However I believe that some members opt to have it changed at 60,000 miles to play safe. If it breaks the repair bill will be fairly hefty.

Thanks Dennis

My car needs to have its MOT next month.Again I don't know whether to ask the garage to service the car at the same time even though I have seen no warning fron the car that it should be serviced.

It will be one year since I purchased it and I have done about 7000 miles in the year.As silly as it sounds I would just like it to have a yearly checkup of sorts or do I wait to hear from the car?? being indicisive and a worrier are two bad traits!

Thanks