What Determines the Oil Change Interval

[Matt Titanium]

There seems to be some suggestion that the cars know the condition of the engine oil and when a change is due.

Can anyone confirm if there is some kind of oil condition monitoring sensors inside the engine or is it just a calculation around time, journey length and how the car is driven?

If the car really knows how good the oil is, can I change it early and reset the oil interval in the MMI to run through to the first inspection service?

My last car asked for changes at 14000, then again at 21000 miles, the only difference was that it had more or less been stood for six months before flagging up the need for the second change.

 

[KenL]

On the facelift you can reset the oil change clock yourself if you do any extra change.

 

[Terminator x]

Afaik it is annual or when you breach a certain mileage if less than 12 months.

TX.

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

 

[KenL]

Afaik it is annual or when you breach a certain mileage if less than 12 months.

TX.

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

Depends on whether you are on fixed or variable (factory default) service regime.

Fixed is 9k/12 months.
Variable is ~18k miles/24 months

 

[Rob2k68]

In VCDS you can look at the service indicators and there is indeed an oil condition indicator. I've been wondering this myself as my car says oil change due in 900 miles but the condition says good, I changed it myself nearly 6k miles ago but didn't reset anything back then so I'm thinking it's time or mileage rather than anything else. I'm P/F/L but as your Team Navarra then your F/L so would be handy doing this in the MMI as Ken suggests.

 

[Matt Titanium]

I was and am on variable. It can't be just time or mileage as my PFL 1.8 had got down to 19 days to oil change on the countdown, we took the car on a weeks holiday and the time slowly crept back up to 36 days after doing another 1000 miles!

Great news to be able to easily reset in the MMI. I'll probably change it around 9000 miles. £32 for 4 litres of Castrol edge x2 and the price of a genuine Audi oil filter is far less than half of what I was charged for an early interim service, and much better for the engine.

 

[RichardT]

I was and am on variable. It can't be just time or mileage as my PFL 1.8 had got down to 19 days to oil change on the countdown, we took the car on a weeks holiday and the time slowly crept back up to 36 days after doing another 1000 miles!

I wouldn't think it looks at the actual oil condition. I assume it is based on some complicated algorithm looking at time, mileage and various driving parameters.
Could you holiday have been mainly long journey as opposed to shorter commuting. Then the MMI says " hold on a second, maybe the pattern has changed so we can wait a bit longer for the oil change"