How often should you top up oil in A4 2.0 Tdi Multronic

[nmh1977]

Hello,

How often do fellow Tdi owners top up their oil levels. Also, am I the only who finds it hard to read the oil level on the dipstick. I pulled the dipstick out and the level seems way above the max mark. The audi technican said it was something to do with the oil heating up ????

Also said don't worry about checking the oil regularly as you just need to check it when the oil warning light comes on

Surely waiting that long can't be good for the engine.

Cheers

Nick

[John140]

Personally, I check my oil about every 3 weeks regardless of mileage, but my car seems to have settled down to use about 1L in about 5000 miles now which I think is okay.
I definately dissagree with waiting for the low oil light to come on !!
I dont know what Audi were thinking when they designed the dipstick on these new engines, it is very hard to read, unless the engine oil is stone cold. Actually, I degreased and painted my dipstick white which helped.

[JohnH]

OK so mine's a 170 manual but the the whole oil check thing is a real pain... firstly it uses about 1ltr every 9K miles, the bad thing being that it HAS to be VW 507 because of the DPF, hopefully multitronic owners are fortunate enough not to have this and can use the markedly cheaper VW 505 stuff - not least because the newer specification oil can be pretty hard to get hold of.

Then there's the low oil warning, mine suddenly started coming on every 80 miles or so at 11K miles, repeated checking of the dip-stick (not easy when the long-life oil resembles tar and the dip-stick is helpfully coloured black) showed that the oil level was fine. The dealer put a software fix on the car but now I'm not entirely sure I trust it.....

So, I check every 2000-3000 miles or so, the 'last quarter' of the dip-stick range seems to be consumed much more quickly than the rest but that's probably just an illusion.

I personally don't like the long-life servicing, the oil is truly horrid at 16K miles, however it's a lease car so I have no real say in this.

[John140]

1 litre in 9K is very good I think for a turbo charged car, as once the engine has bedded in, one of the major causes of oil useage is via the turbo bearings.

[JohnH]

Actually I need to correct my last post... I forgot to include the 0.5ltr or so used before my first top-up so my car uses more like 1ltr of VW 507 oil every 7K miles (2.5ltrs in 18K miles works out as 7.2K miles/ltr by my reckoning).

I try to remember to let the car idle before switching off, I've no idea whether this is actually necessary these days but it certainly used to be recommended in order to maintain oil pressure to the turbo bearings whilst it had time to slow down. Maybe this saves some oil ?

The real problem (at the moment) with the VW 507 specification is obtaining it (mandated for cars with DPF). When I first needed some (in Aug '07) I had to go a long way to find it and then I bought the only litre of the stuff which a local Skoda dealer had - other garages and retailers had never heard of it. Now it's 'hit and miss' if you'll find it in stock and many will try to tell you that VW 505 is OK for your car - which according to the owners manual it definitely isn't if you have a DPF.

[John140]

Shell garages usually have a Shell branded 507 spec oil available.

The main reason for letting the car idle for a bit when you've been driving it hard, is more to stop oil in the turbo bearings from carbonizing due to the heat of the turbo, ie alowing the turbo to cool slightly with oil still circulating. Turbos actually spin -down quite quickly as they are relatively lightly built now.

1 litre in 7.2K miles is still not bad...