My 2011 Superb 170 tdi has just had it's 1st service, at 15 months and 18600 miles. Pretty good I think and much better value than fixed sevice intervals. The dealers stuck new badges on after the delamination recall issue but, other than that, just routine items and the car is back with me. I'm interested to hear how many miles others are getting on the variable schedule?

I am old school if you intend to keep your car for any length of time, no car should go more than 12 months without a oil change.

i dont under stand people who spend £16.000 to £30.000 on a car and then worry about saving £100 on a service on there new car.

bill

Mine is showing up as service due in 5k miles, it's on about 11.5k at present.

But 1st service won't be done at main dealer but an independent who will reset service indicator forcing it onto fixed.

I am old school if you intend to keep your car for any length of time, no car should go more than 12 months without a oil change.

i dont under stand people who spend £16.000 to £30.000 on a car and then worry about saving £100 on a service on there new car.

bill

Why have you assumed I've got mine on variable service to save money? Money is nothing to do with it, time is the key. Taking a car in for service wastes approx 4 hours of my valuable time.

As for the length of time/ mileage between services, improvements in technology inc oil have allowed the interval to be prolonged which is, IMHO, a step forward.

Edited 30 March, 201214 yr by 2slo

Afraid that's not really true (good marketing though). The car is fine for a while but the spate of Turbo failures on BMW's seemed to co-incide well with the extension of service intervals in order to reduce monthly lease costs. Same goes for the 'sealed for life' gearboxes which seem to fail more than you'd expect around 100k.

If you don't believe me, see if you can get a sample of oil that's been in your engine for 18k and run it between your fingers. That's what is 'lubricating' your engine.

To go 24months or 20k without a service is not good for your car. I have my superb 170 dsg on time and distance (basically service it every 10k or 12 months). I actually took it off variable. There is no way an engine can go this long without new oil and filters.

I have heard that variable servicing is purely for the driver and not the car.

My 6 month old Greenline has now covered 16,800 miles and the MFD says it's first service is due in 1,900 miles (ie. 18,700 miles). This corresponds with the variable intervals for my previous Superb 1.9Tdi.

Variable Servicing is definitely a boon to the high mileage driver, as it reduced the number of trips to the dealership. As for the quality of oil, on average my car will have its oil changed every 7 months, some 5 months sooner than the driver of the same car adopting a Fixed Servicing regime (12 months or 10,000 miles).

Wouldn't the driver of the same car adopting a Fixed Servicing regime (doing 16,800 miles every six months) get an oil change every 3 months and 17 days - when his car reached 10,000 miles?

But I see your point, not much fun having to get a service 3-4 times a year and variable servicing potentially knocks around 1 pence per mile off the running costs.

Edited 30 March, 201214 yr by artichoke273

Time has nothing to do with it. The oil absorbs carbon deposits from the combustion process. So a car doing 20,000 miles a year before it is serviced vs 10,000 miles over the same period is not the same.

Be in no doubt, you'll probably notice no difference over 60-80k and if you move the car on before you get there I don't expect you will have a problem. However, for the poor guy who buys it off you...

Common sence makes it obvious. Check the oil after 10k and its black, so its already absorbed enough carbon to turn totally black. After 20k it must have absorbed even more? Say twice as much? These fine particles are not all blocked by the oil filter and those that are not can cause damage.

So why not change it earlier? To help reduce lease costs for company car drivers and make the car appear cheaper. This obviously leads to problems further down the line but by then its out of the company lease and out of warranty so its someone elses problem. Skoda is not alone in this regard as most manufacturers are doing it now.

Check the oil after 10k and its black, so its already absorbed enough carbon to turn totally black.

Check the oil 500 miles after putting fresh in, that'll be black too!

I see you point, but i'm sure that a multi-million pound outfit such as VAG group have done the research....

As for running it between your fingers, there's something wrong with your filter if there's bits in your oil and you need to be shouting at a dealer!

And in reply to the OP's original question, i had around 18k on mine, when it had it's 1st service too.

Al.

I would expect to keep my car until it's done about 60k miles (3 to 4 years with the mileage I do). Variable servicing should mean 3 services in that time (assuming av 18k intervals)

Fixed servicing would mean 5 or 6 services in the same period. Setting aside the cost saving which, as I said above, is not my motivation here, I can avoid two or three visits to the dealer during my time with the car. I'll sell my car with a FSH maintained in accordance with SUKs recommendations. If it does have engine problems at 100k for the 2nd or 3rd owner due to the lack of sufficient oil changes causing excessive engine wear from the time I've had it, TBH that's not my concern, I'm only interested in minimising wasted time and dealer visits.

If it had to be serviced annually/ every 10k miles then I'd do it, Skoda say it can be run on variable service intervals so who am I to argue?

now thats not what you said in your first post.( Pretty good I think and much better value than fixed sevice intervals.)

and how can you have 5 or 6 12 month services in 3-4 years

bill

These fixed v variable threads always come up.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you think Oil R&D has not come on in the last 20 years?

Isn't longlife oil just that? They wouldn't just call longlife, longlife without extensive testing?

Why is 10k ok but not 15k? Why not make the interval 5k or even 1k? Who says that the oil quality is any worse at 5, 10 or 15k?

Why the magical 12 month figure? Why not 6 months? 3months? 14 months? 9 months? Again, another figure plucked out the sky to keep customers happy and dealers busy.

Has anyone actually done any research into failure rates on engines on fixed vs variable or is it just scaremongering like the 4yr cambelt rule?

....I have a 2004 Bora 130PD on variable since new and coming up to 100k and my mate has a 2004 Polo 130PD coming up to 140k, also on variable since new.

If said mate had had 14 services vs the 7 he has actually had he would have paid about £1000 more in servicing costs.

now thats not what you said in your first post.( Pretty good I think and much better value than fixed sevice intervals.)

and how can you have 5 or 6 12 month services in 3-4 years

bill

I meant better value in terms of less time needing to be spent at the dealers. Cost wasn't what I was discussing, as you see I haven't mentioned it in my OP.

Fixed servicing is mileage or time whichever comes first. So if fixed intervals are every 10k miles or every 12 months and, as I said above, I do 60k miles in about 4 years then I'd need 5 or 6 visits to the dealer in the time I have the car based on mileage, not time. On variable, if I get continue to get 18k between services that's only 3 visits required. That's the value aspect as far as I'm concerned.

These fixed v variable threads always come up.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you think Oil R&D has not come on in the last 20 years?

Isn't longlife oil just that? They wouldn't just call longlife, longlife without extensive testing?

Why is 10k ok but not 15k? Why not make the interval 5k or even 1k? Who says that the oil quality is any worse at 5, 10 or 15k?

Why the magical 12 month figure? Why not 6 months? 3months? 14 months? 9 months? Again, another figure plucked out the sky to keep customers happy and dealers busy.

Has anyone actually done any research into failure rates on engines on fixed vs variable or is it just scaremongering like the 4yr cambelt rule?

....I have a 2004 Bora 130PD on variable since new and coming up to 100k and my mate has a 2004 Polo 130PD coming up to 140k, also on variable since new.

If said mate had had 14 services vs the 7 he has actually had he would have paid about £1000 more in servicing costs.

Valid points. There are so many variables. Another one with regards engine wear: My car on variable service gets 5 oil changes in 100k miles (based on 18k between services). Someone else on the fixed service gets 10 oil changes. Now in my case I'm experienced enough to know that engines (esp oil) need to be up to operating temp before using their full performance, and I drive carefully on a cold engine. Perhaps the driver on fixed intervals, for the sake of argument, does what I see so often and regularly revs a cold car hard when pulling out of a junction etc. Which engine has the most wear at 100k I wonder?

I have had 4 VW group cars with 140 hp diesels 2 Seat Alhambra's 2 VW Passat's all from new all completed 90 to 120k in my hands,all on longlife oil extended service intervals.

no problems were experienced except for a d/m flywheel failure on 1 seat....obviously not oil related.

All were running smoothly with minimal oil use between services at the end of their time with me.

present car is a 170 dsg Superb Elegance estate and I anticipate the same excellent durability as most of the mechanicals and electricals appear to have been lifted from Audi and VW parts stock.

Edited 31 March, 201214 yr by alanbathurst

these posts just go to show how different we all are but yet we all like the same car.

bill

As others have said, I had a 1.9tdi 130 in an audi on longlife servicing. The engngine still ran like new at 130k.

The point is not only has the oil improved, but how you drive makes a big difference too. Lots of short trips, lots of hard accells, as opposed to long smooth motorway trips. These all have a different effect. I don't know the differences, but the variable service calculation does.

I am old school if you intend to keep your car for any length of time, no car should go more than 12 months without a oil change.

i dont under stand people who spend £16.000 to £30.000 on a car and then worry about saving £100 on a service on there new car.

bill

I agree with that thinking - our Trasnit 2.4 TDCi's have factory service intervals of 24k. I just can't bring myself to leave them that long before that have an oil change.

So they get done every 12k which may costs an extra £120 a go but money well spent.

My Octavia vRS is on variable servicing and had it's first service at 18600 miles ( 17 months old). So the initial oil could have been in the car either 18600 miles or two years.

However what I don't understand is that the next service is then in 365 days (or another 10000 miles) i.e. at 28600 miles. That means the second oil change will be in half the time. Was the variable servicing indicator reset incorrectly baecause it seems out of kilter with the service guide?

Yes they set it wrong , you may be able to reset it on the mfd but check with the dealer what service he did as the oils are different

As for oil life

Some trucks have the same oil for 50,000 miles now , they do carry more oil but any reliability or wear issues would have been demonstrated in that industry long before ours.

Some people are stuck in the world of Castrol GTX and Duckhams oils and carburettor engines that contaminated the oil with fuel after a few thousand miles.

My previous E class went 14k or two years between services for 8 years, our pd Octavia was on variable from new and did 80k before replacing and our Superb went onto variable at 40k after the free servicing ended

I see no point servicing a car more than its needed so that a future owner many years down the line may or may not benefit

I have my 2010 170 DSG on variable service but its a high milage (80K + in 2 years) car extended service intervals are fine with the higher milage vehicles as they dont have the number of cold starts that a lower milage cars do, its the short journeys that do the damage. that said I would never let a car go past 12 months without a service. My wifes 18tsi octy is serviced every 12 months without fail and thats only done 11k in just over 2 years

Variable service can only be reset via the dealer computer or vcds.

If they were lazy, or wanting to extract more money, then they either reset via the dash.

What were you charged for?

Mine will be on 10,000 miles when I pick it up, and I got a deal on 3 years servicing thrown in as well. The deal is that when it leaves the garage they swap it back from variable onto the fixed servicing regime. So I asked the sales guy if they could do the first service then before I pick it up - this was met with "oh, er, um, well, I don't really know - they just normally do a fluid check and top-up". Doesn't really bother me too much as I will force it in for a service in 3 months time when it gets to 1-year old. But if they were to uncover anything as part of the service then I clearly have better leverage if they do it now as I won't technically have taken delivery of it. Suppose anything that is wrong will get fixed under warranty, I guess.

Variable service can only be reset via the dealer computer or vcds.

If they were lazy, or wanting to extract more money, then they either reset via the dash.

What were you charged for?

You can go through the multidot and reset the service interval yourself - no tricks or codes - it's just there. When I got mine back after the first dealer service it still said the service was due so I reset it myself. However - after the reset it only had a 10000 mile interval to the next service.

Although 'technically' this 10000 mile gap should have been a pollen filter change (ONLY) - the dealership said it wasn't necessary and to reset it myself again. So rather than a service tomorrow I've got another 10000 miles (and a stinky pollen filter?!)