I have a 2003 Octavia 1.9 TDi with Variable service engine. My driving is a mix of cross country and in-town with what might be called 'normal' driving style (i.e. not flat out all the time and keeping withing speed limits). I understand that the time for first servicing will possibly be something between 20,00 and 30,000 miles. But what has been the practical experience of other users?

Also, I put in half a litre of oil at about 9,000 miles, and at current 18,000 miles the level is still OK. Is this excellent low consumption typical?

The experience of others would be welcome.

John

Cant help you yet on the variable servicing, but as regards oil consumption I can tell you that of all the VW TDI,s that I have driven, they all have used a little oil for the first 3-7 k miles, then after that nothing.

So it sounds like your oil consumption is normal....compared to the 6 VW TDI,s that I have used (4 x 2.5 and 2 x 1.9,s)

John,

My 2002 TDi went to just over 31,000 before it hit its first variable service (the indicator came on at about 30,500). It swallowed over half a litre of oil at 8000 miles and has subsequently needed little else than a small top-up here and there (Castrol SLXII Longlife of course!!).

HTH!

My wife's new Polo 100bhp 1.9 TDi (oh, the shame) came new set at fixed servicing but the dealer said to assess the driving style over the first 10k miles and decide whether to change to variable. The VW handbooks go into a little more detail re this subject than the Skoda ones. Basically if you do a lot of town driving, stopping and starting, short journeys etc go with fixed. If you spend a lot of time on the motorway etc go with variable. My Octavia RS is set to fixed because I do a lot of miles around town. If you're worried about cost I have heard a rumour that main dealers are to lose their grip on servicing cars still under warranty so maybe you should start looking around for a well equiped independant.

Re the oil. They all use it when new. The Polo used half a litre over 1k miles but nothing else since.

I think that this is the advice Rich is referrring to. (It is a .pdf document so you will need Acrobat Reader to view it). ). Howard found it and posted the link a while back. Recommended reading for those who want to work out whether to opt for variable servicing or not.