17 hours ago, Offski said:

It is a great post.

Estate Man has been at the stripping down of engines as well and at motor shows or something with the company.

?

Which company was it Estate Man, 

and what came out as the top oil and which was 2nd and 3rd from their test results?

Or is there confidentiality and the testing was only for their company to know and no results published for the likes of Motoring Journals.

 

Do change oil regularly, by the Manufacturers Schedules, Fixed or Variable, and that will be if Castrol / Quantum or any other oils, 

Premium Brand like Castrol at full RRP or costing much less at discount supermarkets like from B&M / Home Bargains. (not sure how much or little they sell, but look at the Car section, Castrol is sometimes there at 'Much Cheapness' as is Shell Oil, check for the correct spec obviously.

 Same Castrol oil as in the other Retailers from the same factory, just not with the same mark up.

1 litre bought for half the price the Main Dealer shows on the Invoice, £11.50 a litre or so then VAT on top.

Dealership / Motor Group Servicing oil, bought in bulk and charged at prices as though it comes in containers that customers buy and a big mark up charge.

 

17 hours ago, Offski said:

 

 

 

Great link to our Aussie friend Offski. And of course he's right as you know.

 

I won't identify the company I worked for, and cannot provide any oil testing information as it is copyrighted for professional internal trade use. Doing so would be daft because I could be challenged over any published findings and would not be able to provide evidence to defend myself. Could lead to some significant legal issues if you see what I mean. I can only generalise. We were not in the business of providing consumer information, but were paid to carryout development and research on engines and this on occasions included the oils that worked best for those engines. This was for cars and motorcycles. Really exciting work because I got to destroy engines as well as build them. 

@lawnmowerman, do you really think that there is a plan to increase servicing costs, that just would not work unless all the marques in the same sector were signed in to do the same thing. It might seem fair enough for a business to develop a strategy to maximise profit - that is what they should be doing, but if they did that by, in this case, making annual servicing very expensive - especially if we are talking specifically about Skoda, then the public get the message and buy elsewhere.

 

The "pubs and tied houses to breweries" does indeed seem to be just one of these things, I'd guess going back to when people set up pubs/inns which were a bit too basic and the breweries who were supplying them, stepped in and helped them improve things a bit - but added in a few restrictions on how they could continue to operate. Incidentally, on that topic, we have a local brewery build gastro pub(maybe) that keeps changing hands everyone that takes it on ends up falling out with the localish brewery - which is a nuisance!

 

You are correct about dealership attitudes and potential workload, but VW seem to be lucky that way - well locally anyway.

 

My wife's 2015 Polo was bought with a 3 year dealership service plan which was just up front paying for 2 minor and 1 major service and maybe an MOT at the end, the first year they did not hand over a FOC bill or statement of work carried out, so I complained, the next year they did and it was just an internal copy of a "self to self" ie internal billing for accounting purposes so included pricing, the total cost was only £65 including all parts and labour and that was for a major or "year 2" service, I did not expect to be shown their internal pricing as it was none of my business, but there you go.

12 hours ago, rum4mo said:

@lawnmowerman, do you really think that there is a plan to increase servicing costs, that just would not work unless all the marques in the same sector were signed in to do the same thing. It might seem fair enough for a business to develop a strategy to maximise profit - that is what they should be doing, but if they did that by, in this case, making annual servicing very expensive - especially if we are talking specifically about Skoda, then the public get the message and buy elsewhere.

 

The "pubs and tied houses to breweries" does indeed seem to be just one of these things, I'd guess going back to when people set up pubs/inns which were a bit too basic and the breweries who were supplying them, stepped in and helped them improve things a bit - but added in a few restrictions on how they could continue to operate. Incidentally, on that topic, we have a local brewery build gastro pub(maybe) that keeps changing hands everyone that takes it on ends up falling out with the localish brewery - which is a nuisance!

 

You are correct about dealership attitudes and potential workload, but VW seem to be lucky that way - well locally anyway.

 

My wife's 2015 Polo was bought with a 3 year dealership service plan which was just up front paying for 2 minor and 1 major service and maybe an MOT at the end, the first year they did not hand over a FOC bill or statement of work carried out, so I complained, the next year they did and it was just an internal copy of a "self to self" ie internal billing for accounting purposes so included pricing, the total cost was only £65 including all parts and labour and that was for a major or "year 2" service, I did not expect to be shown their internal pricing as it was none of my business, but there you go.

 

There is no plan to increase service costs - just an annual budget set in advance to achieve a level of profit appropriate to the business. This includes making judgements about the level of work charged to other internal departments. They are given no favours - each department has a level of profitability it needs to make for the company. If Sales buy a dud it is their costs - not subsidised by other departments. Similarly parts departments forecast their annual earnings by budgeting for sales both internally & externally (sales, service, trade partners and over counter sales). In parts departments this requires careful control to avoid being left with obsolete parts (parts for vehicles that by dint of age no longer visit a Franchised Dealership). A sharp Parts Manager will mitigate this risk and use his Trade Partner contacts to cleanse these parts from stock and avoid expensive write downs.

 

Annual servicing already is very expensive for what they do (all franchises).

 

It is not specific to Skoda.

 

Cheers, Bill 

Edited 24 May, 20188 yr by lawnmowerman
Additional info.

@lawnmowerman, I think that we are talking slightly different languages here so my points have been slightly misinterpreted - I'm now out of this off topic discussion.

Me again.

Based on the previous postings and in the interest of engine longevity, I have decided to change the oil every 6000 ish miles.

I am going to use 5/40 oil and a genuine filter.

My question is, I have 5litres of oil in stock already- Fuchs Titan gt xtl. It has 502 vw approval. I am presuming that this will be ok to use.

What we saying?

2 minutes ago, Skinneroo said:

Me again.

Based on the previous postings and in the interest of engine longevity, I have decided to change the oil every 6000 ish miles.

I am going to use 5/40 oil and a genuine filter.

My question is, I have 5litres of oil in stock already- Fuchs Titan gt xtl. It has 502 vw approval. I am presuming that this will be ok to use.

What we saying?

 

just check your reg on their website http://fuchs-eu.lubricantadvisor.com/default.aspx?lang=eng let us now what comes up please, based on your car. What filter are you using and where from, just out of interest.

1 hour ago, EdHru said:

 

just check your reg on their website http://fuchs-eu.lubricantadvisor.com/default.aspx?lang=eng let us now what comes up please, based on your car. What filter are you using and where from, just out of interest.

Genuine Vag filter from Skoda dealer.

8 hours ago, EdHru said:

 

just check your reg on their website http://fuchs-eu.lubricantadvisor.com/default.aspx?lang=eng let us now what comes up please, based on your car. What filter are you using and where from, just out of interest.

 

Oil checks out ok.

Thanks

Edited 11 June, 20188 yr by Skinneroo