Oil change more frequent than full service?

[Monsoon]

My Audi A3 2.0 FSI Sport is now two and a half years old. When I bought it exactly a year ago it had just had a service carried out. The variable service indicator still shows another 11 months/9000 miles til the next service is needed, but by this time the oil will be two years old. I've always been careful to change oils at least once a year on previous cars, and having e-mailed The Telegraph's Motoring Agony Uncle Honest John, he agrees that the oil should be changed much more often than two years. Can anyone suggest what is best? I'm planning to call my local Audi dealership but presumably they'll just say get the oil changed at the next service, when the car tells me it's needed.

 

[icenutter]

I'd recommend doing the oil services more regularly as well. For the cost of £25-30 a year I'd rather change the oil sooner to keep the engine in top nick, especially if you are keeping the car for a long time. My GF had a Renault Clio mk2 with an oil change interval of 19k miles and in the few thousand running up to that it was certainly not running as well as it could. After the change it was like new. I don't like to think about the wear that must have been caused to the engine.

There's lots of techie oil stuff on http://www.tdiclub.com although it is US and Diesel focussed; Oil Analysis