Advice Using Castrol Edge 10w 60 On High Milage S3

S3 Hilife

S3 Hilife

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At my last service (December 2013) I specifically instructed the garage to use Castrol Edge 5W 30 as it is the recommended grade for my engine, however they decided to ignore my request and used 10W 60 instead. When I questioned their decision they told me this grade would be better due to the high milage (was around 118,000 miles).
Can anyone tell me if I should stick with the Edge 10W 60 or change back to 5W 30, although the engine sounds and runs great I am a bit concerned the 10W 60 isn't suitable for the engine or turbo.
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks. steve
 
I can't imagine 10w 60 is any good at all! I think you'll find they've got massive drums of bulk oil. I'd get it changed personally
 
Greg-S3 said:
I can't imagine 10w 60 is any good at all! I think you'll find they've got massive drums of bulk oil. I'd get it changed personally
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Yep, that sounds about right, they are a BMW specialist which is probably why they recommended 10w60. I thought it would be OK as I know and trusted them. Thanks
 
jojo said:
Stick with 5w30, but at your mileage, if you haven't changed the oil pick up yet, then I highly recommend you do.
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Do you think I should drop that oil and replace with 5w30 ASAP? The oil pickup is one thing i'm not sure if it has been done.

It just goes to show if you want something doing right then do it yourself.
Thanks, Steve
 
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Personally, I'd drop the oil and replace with 5w40 fully synth and a new filter.
ECP have 50% off atm I'm using Shell Helix Ultra, and a Mann filter.
 
CMcKenzie said:
Personally, I'd drop the oil and replace with 5w40 fully synth and a new filter.
ECP have 50% off atm I'm using Shell Helix Ultra, and a Mann filter.
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Thanks, i'll take a look at that, i've just noticed asda direct have 4ltr Castrol Edge for £38 which aint too bad.
 
I can't find oil pick up pipe for an S3 on ECP website, anyone wanna help...
 
You'll need to go to the dealers, or TPS for pick up pipe.
 
crazyhilife said:
So there are not many places listing the oil pickup pipe but I did find a seller on Ebay listing them, pt.number: 06A115251 eBay - Item # 331238868177
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10w60 is way too thick, wouldn't leave that in there for long.

Every VAG I have ever has drank 5w30. 5w40 is a better bet for older vehicles.

Pickup pipe is about £10 from TPS, wouldn't risk buying one from elsewhere.

Audi's own 5w40 fully synthetic oil, Quantum Synta Platinum (made by castrol) is a good price from TPS. It's around £24 retail for 5 litres.

They also have offers on the oil every 5-6 weeks. I picked up a couple of 20 litre barrels for £47 each recently!
 
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crazyhilife said:
Thanks, i'll take a look at that, i've just noticed asda direct have 4ltr Castrol Edge for £38 which aint too bad.
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4 liters isn't enough anyway... 5w30 is for "long life" service interval, but I think you'd be mad to be on that with cars this age.

if you value your turbo at all 5w40 is generally thought to best with regular oil/filter changes.
 
No need to buy an oil pick up , just clean your one with either petrol or brake cleaner , it's the replacement O ring that's important which your local audi dealer will sell you for a couple if quid !
I don't understand the replacing the pick up thing ! It's a metal tube with a gauze on the end , nothing to go wrong , just blocks up ! Clean it and replace the O ring seal , simples :)
 
(Sorry I mistakenly deleted this post)

Well I've just ordered the bits to do this, hopefully I haven't forgot anything, here is the price for the parts if anyone is interested in doing this in the future:
Oil pickup pipe 12.14 (audi)
O ring for pickup 4.76 (audi)
Sump Gasket silicone 23.69 (audi)
Then obviously oil and filter, I got:
5L Castrol Edge 5w40 50.00 (asda)
Oil filter 8.00 (ebay)

I am hopefully going to do this at the weekend (depending on weather) and i'll let you know how it goes.

Please add to this if I've missed anything
 
Where in the country are you based?

You should have a look out for a TPS, you would probably have got all of that for half the price.

Obviously not much help now, but at least you know for next time.

They do good offers on their oil, as already mentioned above, you can pick up Quantum (which is what the dealers use) 20ltrs for under £50.
 
Nilz said:
Where in the country are you based?

You should have a look out for a TPS, you would probably have got all of that for half the price.

Obviously not much help now, but at least you know for next time.

They do good offers on their oil, as already mentioned above, you can pick up Quantum (which is what the dealers use) 20ltrs for under £50.
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Hi, i'm in Wisbech, Cambs. No TPS locally unfortunatly (that I know of) but I usually get bits from Audi out of convenience as its close by. I'll defo keep in mind TPS for future tho'
 
basil brush said:
No need to buy an oil pick up , just clean your one with either petrol or brake cleaner , it's the replacement O ring that's important which your local audi dealer will sell you for a couple if quid !
I don't understand the replacing the pick up thing ! It's a metal tube with a gauze on the end , nothing to go wrong , just blocks up ! Clean it and replace the O ring seal , simples :)
Click to expand...

It's true that you can clean the old one up, but a new one is peanuts to buy and straight swop, no need to waste time cleaning, no brainer really...
 
If you're dropping the sump there are a few of the 20 odd allen key bolts that are tricky to get at. I bought one of these that made them a piece of **** to get at: eBay - Item # 300964025429 Not sure what it would have been like without it. May be worth getting a few spare bolts as well. They are about 60p from Audi.
 
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TheRunningMan said:
If you're dropping the sump there are a few of the 20 odd allen key bolts that are tricky to get at. I bought one of these that made them a piece of **** to get at: eBay - Item # 300964025429 Not sure what it would have been like without it. May be worth getting a few spare bolts as well. They are about 60p from Audi.
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Hi, did you post an image or a link there, It doesn't seem to be visible
Thanks
 
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C razy, according to my 2001 s3 owners manual, page 164 under engine oil section. :its normal to use 0.5liters per 1000km' So if your usage is above that, I would stick to 5-50w. Otherwise, stay 5-40w.
 
oldcar said:
C razy, according to my 2001 s3 owners manual, page 164 under engine oil section. :its normal to use 0.5liters per 1000km' So if your usage is above that, I would stick to 5-50w. Otherwise, stay 5-40w.
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1/2 L of oil per 1000km or 620 miles is quite excessive IMO.
My original question was the suitability or effect of using 10w 60 in the 1.8T as the garage that serviced it said this would be best (after I had instructed them to use 5w30) and 6 months later I find out their full of BS.
 
It was a link. Search on ebay for a 5mm ball end hex bit it should come up. There's one about 160mm long which is the one I got.
 
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crazyhilife said:
Just ordered it, thanks for that
Anything that makes life a little easier is OK with me
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It's really not that bad a job, just make sure you clean both surfaces and get a good, clean bead of gasket sealant when replacing the sump. I was worried about finding a puddle of oil on the drive the day after but all good.
 
Ok so had the car on the ramp today and removed the sump to replace the pickup strainer, on first glance it didn't look too bad at all but when I removed it it was caked with debris (all sorts of stuff) which was strange as the bottom of the sump pan had very little debris. See image below of just some of the crap which came out, there was some bits of what looks like gravel and other carbon deposits.
Image

This is definatly one job I'm glad I did
 
Job well done. I had a lot of sludge in mine and the pick up was pretty blocked but nothing like that. Hopefully will inspire a few others to do the same.
 
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TheRunningMan said:
Job well done. I had a lot of sludge in mine and the pick up was pretty blocked but nothing like that. Hopefully will inspire a few others to do the same.
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Thanks, Definatly worth doing. Wasn't expecting that amount of crud in the pickup.
It was really not a difficult job, just time consuming with lots of cleaning. That 5mm ball end hex bit came in handy for the three awkward bolts so thanks for that tip.
Steve
 
Those light brown parts look like they might be bits of the cam chain tensioner guides. I would that out if I were you :)
 
Scullies said:
Those light brown parts look like they might be bits of the cam chain tensioner guides. I would that out if I were you :)
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Oh I hope not, it seems to be one thing after another at the moment, thats the way it goes I guess. I'm sure I do remember reading someone elses thread a while back who said they had found gravel like bits in the sump pan which turned out to be pieces of cam chain tensioner guides.
Thanks for spotting that and I will have to read up on how to check them.
Again any advice is always welcome,
Thanks
 
Good thing you got it cleaned! I did mine a couple of months back and had similar black chunks and all kinds of crap in and attached to the pickup pipe (not those big light brown chunks though). Luckily the cam cover gasket needed replacing anyway, so saw the tensioner was still in one piece and looking good.
 
Hi , i'm from Portugal and have a BAM S3 (almost stock) with 222.000+ km's , i changed the oil about 4 months ago.
I'm using Castrol Edge 10w60 now and i have no complains so far.
At BMW they recomend that oil because it's the oil used in the M3 , and it's for high performance engines , for engines that run at high rpm's for quite some time.
I live in the Algarve and the weather here is hot most of the time (especially in the summer) and my engine and turbo are running great.
I used the Edge 5w30 a long time ago and my car was consuming a hell lot of oil.
Didn't know what it was. No pudles on the garage floor. Nothing.
I went to my Audi shop and they replace the oil with their longlife oil and problem solved.
But now , i'm changing the oil myself and i was using Edge 10w40 with no problems and now i switch to 10w60 recommended by a lot of people who are also using it on their turbo cars with no worries.
 
I think the general opinion amongst people here who know the 20vT well is that 10w60 is way too thick for the turbo. I used it in mine on recomendation by a BMW specialist for around 7 months with no problems but you've got to bare in mind thats only short term. It would be interesting to know if anyone else is using the 10w60 in their 20vT.
BMW use it in their M series engines but at the end of the day its a compleatly different engine with very few similarities. Most people on here will advise you to use 5w40 with the high milage.
I swapped mine out as soon as I found out its not suitable, I dont know why BMW would suggest this is a better grade but I for one dont trust them.

Steve
 
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