My car flashed up a message that an oil service is due in 1300 miles. I am a little confused as I've done just over 8000 miles and have had the car (new) since January. It seems much too short for a standard service and I do 40 motorway miles each day as a commute.  Thoughts?

If the supplying dealership employee set your car to Fixed Servicing at the PDI then 9,400 miles / 372 days which ever comes first is what is showing.

 

They should have asked if you wanted Variable / Flexible Servicing.

http://volkswagen.co.uk/owners/servicing/regimes 

Nobody asked that! They know I do around 12k miles per annum so I assumed that the service interval would be around that. May ask them to change to variable intervals when I take it in. 

personally I wouldn't    9 ish would be good and do your own thing after that    too many engines ruined listening to VAG's  crap leveled at the fleet market's running cost