Cheap Oil

Chiefbadger

Chiefbadger

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My S4 is nearly due its first oil service so popped into the dealer to get it booked in today. They are quoting £270 to get the oils changed which seems like daylight robbery.

I asked how much of that was the oil cost and they are charging £140 for 7 litres.

Anyway, eurocarparts have a 25% off sale at the moment and if you use the code vcloudspecial you get an extra 27% off the sale price. So I'm picking up 8 litres of Castrol Edge Titanium 5w30 for £56.93.

Now just have to get some comparisons to bring the labour cost down a bit!


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Jesus! And that's why I don't use dealers for stuff like this.

I know mines not a s4 only a a4 black edition but just had mine done at an indy everything changed all (all oem parts) £140.

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So long as the oil is to spec then it will be fine (504/507 is the latest iirc)
 
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Ask the dealer for a price on the service with you supplying the oil. They may object at first or claim it's not possible but with a few prods of a decent service advisor they can do it.

Alternatively get a quote all in from an indie and get them to price match. Stoke Audi refused point blank but Stafford Audi have been fantastic all 3 times I've asked them to match. Frustrating as they're in the same group but I wouldn't even waste my time with Stoke Audi any more.
 
They've said they're very happy for me to provide the oil. So looking at £130 for the labour. I'm alright with that.


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£140 for 7 litres, dear me. This week I took my wife's TT in for the service - and last week got the oil suggested by @Gazwould for even cheaper then - £19.99. My independent Audi specialist (Autotechnica - Hull) is also happy for me to take in the oil, and in total the oil service + me bringing the oil cost me £122 (including brake fluid change & tracking). Ok the TT only needs 4.6 litres but that was cheaper than what they were quoting you for the oil!
 
Maybe in the future consider using other oils, I use Mobil 1 ESP 5W-30 - in other vag car forums there is a lot of talk about Castrol Edge being anything but proper fully synthetic, ie Castrol has gone "down the pan" and is living on its past glory. My car's original dealer certainly used Mobil 1 at its first service and the pre-sale oil service. I'm not trying to promote discussion here, I'm just putting forward same comments and how I've responded to them. Now to remember to get a clear statement from VW dealer as to what oil they intend to use on wife's 2015 Polo on its first service. I have used Castrol oils in the past as they seemed to be an honest and upright lubricant supplier in UK.

Edit:- just one other thing, I do and I think that the OP is trying to, buy good oil cheaply, and not cheap oil - there is a difference.
 
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I had an interim oil change done on mine at one year and 8,500 miles (the service indicator left the showroom on variable). I got it done at an indie for £121 all-in. That was using Millers 5W30 Longlife fully synthetic. Unit price was £8.28 a litre.
 
rum4mo said:
I do and I think that the OP is trying to, buy good oil cheaply, and not cheap oil - there is a difference.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that the oil @Gazwould suggests, is cheap oil, and not good oil? If so, I'll sit back, open the popcorn and relax!
 
£22 Quantum LongLife III 5L is the winner , winner chicken dinner , cheap and approved .

We do not know the quality differences , between Mobil 1 ESP , Shell Helix Ultra , Castrol Edge or even non approved meets or exceeds the requirements of 504.00 507.00 Asda's own unless someone commissions oil analysis .

The best but not cheap would be one of the racing ester marketed oils .
 
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rum4mo said:
Maybe in the future consider using other oils, I use Mobil 1 ESP 5W-30 - in other vag car forums there is a lot of talk about Castrol Edge being anything but proper fully synthetic, ie Castrol has gone "down the pan" and is living on its past glory. My car's original dealer certainly used Mobil 1 at its first service and the pre-sale oil service. I'm not trying to promote discussion here, I'm just putting forward same comments and how I've responded to them. Now to remember to get a clear statement from VW dealer as to what oil they intend to use on wife's 2015 Polo on its first service. I have used Castrol oils in the past as they seemed to be an honest and upright lubricant supplier in UK.

Edit:- just one other thing, I do and I think that the OP is trying to, buy good oil cheaply, and not cheap oil - there is a difference.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not the best choice of words! I was just trying to find the best price for the Castrol. Given it's a year old and still under warranty, I just want to play it safe as cheaply as possible!


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mister.c. said:
Are you saying that the oil @Gazwould suggests, is cheap oil, and not good oil? If so, I'll sit back, open the popcorn and relax!
Click to expand...

No comment at all about Quantum oil either way, what I was saying was that there is a difference between "cheap oil" and oil bought cheaply - that is all!
 
Tbh if I was savvier and had more interest in the greasy bits, I'm sure there are plenty of oils that are cheaper and just as good, but if I can get the stuff Audi recommend at £7 a litre instead of the £20 a litre audi want for it, then I'm happy!


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When dealing with Audi (or any other VAG brand), I've never thought that main dealers (I know that you went indie) would allow the use of any "customer provided parts" to be used during any workshop tasks, indeed I think that I annoyed VW dealer once - and that was even although I made the point that I was also handing in a copy of the bill of sale from their parts department, for a part that they did not hold stock off normally. This supply of your own oil is a game we used to play with Ford years ago, ie buy the Ford oil at discount, leave it in the boot when handing the car in and save "a fortune" relatively speaking - but I'm talking here about a period in time where main dealers were not any near as greedy as VAG main dealers are right now! £20 a litre with a 6.5 litre sump will hurt a bit!

Edit:- if Audi, or their dealer was totally on the ball, that oil you bought is not what they approve, what they approve is the professional version of that product, ie a dye is added which is not in the ordinary version of that oil. Right now the reality of which oil dealers use might even be a 0W-30, as that is what my dealer used last year.
 
Last edited:
rum4mo said:
When dealing with Audi (or any other VAG brand), I've never thought that main dealers (I know that you went indie) would allow the use of any "customer provided parts" to be used during any workshop tasks, indeed I think that I annoyed VW dealer once - and that was even although I made the point that I was also handing in a copy of the bill of sale from their parts department, for a part that they did not hold stock off normally. This supply of your own oil is a game we used to play with Ford years ago, ie buy the Ford oil at discount, leave it in the boot when handing the car in and save "a fortune" relatively speaking - but I'm talking here about a period in time where main dealers were not any near as greedy as VAG main dealers are right now! £20 a litre with a 6.5 litre sump will hurt a bit!

Edit:- if Audi, or their dealer was totally on the ball, that oil you bought is not what they approve, what they approve is the professional version of that product, ie a dye is added which is not in the ordinary version of that oil. Right now the reality of which oil dealers use might even be a 0W-30, as that is what my dealer used last year.
Click to expand...

My dealer actively suggested it when I balked at the price. I said is there anything you can do to bring it down and he wrote down 5w30 fully synthetic and said 'you'll need 7 litres"


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Oh, I must remember to try that out next June when it is big service time, maybe dealer workshops are keen to hold on to servicing work, so maybe they should be realistic with oil prices, especially as they buy it in in bulk, might help them to be more attractive to owner drivers.

I've just booked wife's Polo in for its first service which is covered by a 3 year service deal bought up front, just checked the service "tickets" - covers an oil service up to the price of £110 - checked website, dealer quotes £150 for that now, ah well, so I'll need to add £40 to what I've paid already at point of sale of car!
 
I always supply my own oil, have done for every service since I bought my first car. Vauxhall, Volvo, Audi, they all use customer supplied oil without questioning it.

The strange thing is when I priced up service contracts for a £400,000 truck at work it was cheaper for them to supply oils than for me to buy them via my usual bulk oil supplier.
 
One other strange thing is that any time you go looking for Quantum oils cheaply, you invariably end up buying from a Landrover dealer, or in the link in an earlier posting, a mobile home dealer, I suppose it is just the strange trading world we live in - I don't mind that at all as the oil is just the same, just seems like a VAG dealer has missed out on some business - that is all!
 
The way it works with Quantum are some are buying in bulk from TPS when they have an oil "bonanza" promotion, the more they buy, the cheaper it gets .

They'll always be on to a winner with LongLife III as it's VAG's staple diet .
 
Do they put anything in the service book to say someone brought in their own oil?
 
So you could bring in any old crap and they'll stamp your book as an audi service?
Makes me think twice about a fash.
 
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Interesting point , surely it's got to be an approved oil to keep within a warranty , but then they are not recording what is being used .
 
They should be recording what oil was used on the bill, my Audi dealer seems to do that, also, for their own protection they should record "customer supplied oil" - as said, if not what value does FSH have?

I've always found that VW and Audi main dealers are also a bit protective over fitting customer supplied VAG parts - and why not, I've supplied parts when I knew what work needing doing and had worked out that parts needed would need to get ordered in - and that would waste a day or so, but I've always used that dealer's part department to order in the parts and supplied the bill of sale.
 
My Friend in the Audi main dealer service team gave us some oil and it was 'Quantum 5w30', they use that brand for all Audi services.
Says it is castrol but rebranded for vag service teams. Castrol for consumers, Quantum for dealerships.
once you know that you save many pennies :)
 
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Castrol Edge is so expensive and only in 4ltrs though.
 
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For what it is worth (probably nothing!), Quantum is just a trading name that is used by VAG for aftermarket use only, mainly consumables like oils and wiper blades. I would not bother using their wiper blades as they are "universal fit all" types - and you are being mugged into allowing yourself to think that they are same as fitted to car in factory. Oils, I went chasing Fuchs Titan something 5W-30 once and could not find it, so I went to the horses mouth, ie I emailed Fuchs UK, they suggested that I went to I think it was Unipart and buy it there, so far so good, I later "discovered" that Unipart oils are actually all supplied by Fuchs - or you might think, rebranded and sold as Unipart. So, when next in communication with Fuchs, I made an accidental "foxes paw" and asked him directly if Unipart oils were just rebranded Fuchs - and which was exactly the same as the Fuchs Titan something 5W-30 I was inquiring about (I only did this because I had not been to Unipart recently and did not know that they sold Unipart oil as well as Fuchs oils) - I got a very stern reply indicating that there was no correlation between what was Fuch oil sold branded by Unipart and oils branded as Fuchs - each version is "built to" its own price in other words, don't go thinking that Quantum Longlife 3 5W-30 or whatever is just rebranded/repackaged Castrol Edge Titanium 5W-30 because it will not be, it is just an oil "built up to a price" being supplied to VAG branded for them and for a price by the same company that sell Castrol Edge Titanium - I'm just telling it as it is so they are not the same thing.

Think baked beans:- Heinz sell baked beans, they also produce them for all the main supermarkets - but they are not all the same or same price.

I think about baked beans a lot, too much maybe!
 
We will never really know without lab analysis . It seems more expensive to produce two formulations than one product with dual marketing .

Castrol Edge T FST is of course approved , but it's not marketing it's above spec either , so unless we know with concrete evidence treat any approved with the same regard .
 
I hear what your saying,
Also worth noting it you are going to Audi main dealer for your service every year to maintain full service history, quantum oil is what they will use (currently and for sure at the big dealership near Sunbury where my friend works in their service team).
 
As long as it meets or exceeds the desired spec, should it not matter what oil you use; whether it's cheap or not?
 
Again , who knows , I've used both
Quantum-Longlife III

YTYxZDRjNGYzYTk0ZmU1YzQwMTNhZGFiZTc0OGRkOWKSbGEO6LylSYBp5KiKcBg9aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmFkc2ltZy5jb20vZWE3ZjM4NjAwMzQxNDNhYzg2NTkxZGI2YmQxZmZjMTUxNWMwZjU2MGJmZGYwZDc0MjYyZTgwMDVkMGQwMjExYS5qcGd8fHx8fHw3MDB4NTIyfGh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWR2ZXJ0cy5pZS9zdGF0aWMvaS93YXRlcm1hcmsucG5nfHx8.jpg


and non approved Asda's own

fd7dd34b-29f3-4941-96e9-9f7e18c63cc3_zps22f63bf4.jpg


I can't tell the difference , my PD cam should not be worn and I have excellent performance and mpg .
 
Gazwould said:
We will never really know without lab analysis . It seems more expensive to produce two formulations than one product with dual marketing .

Castrol Edge T FST is of course approved , but it's not marketing it's above spec either , so unless we know with concrete evidence treat any approved with the same regard .
Click to expand...

I suppose we are going way beyond what the OP intended to get from this thread, but in answer to your suggestion, modern production lines are very flexible and all main oil companies, just like the baked beans company I mentioned will be bidding for the supply to other non producers and will have offered a "lesser" but probably reasonably suitable product, the saving being made somewhere and that somewhere will be at the additives package as the base oil will be the same - just the same as in petrols where the refined spirit is the same from all UK refiners, it is the additives that make the "juice" fit for use.
 
Scottk said:
My dealer has used Mobil 1 and Castrol Edge.
Click to expand...

I think that this has been covered many times in many forums, dealership chains will send out request to supply bids, the best bid will net the contract for maybe a year, and so it will maybe oscillate between these two in that geographic area.
 
apache24uk said:
As long as it meets or exceeds the desired spec, should it not matter what oil you use; whether it's cheap or not?
Click to expand...

Exactly, but then when this is discussed in a car forum, personal opinions creep in - and then ----- . A bit like daring to mention the brand of fuel you like to use --- and then the floodgates open.
 
Sometimes it's hard to know what to believe , so many perspectives , even Opie oils told me Castrol don't make Quantum
( they don't sell Quantum ) when there's this great weight of different evidence to support they do .
 
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