I just bought a 2003 A4 3.0. I bought the car in California and drove it back home to Seattle. Before I hit the road I did a quick fluids check under the hood and found it low on oil. I was kind of between a rock and a hard place since I was in LA, and I don't know too much about the vehicle, so I decided to get the oil changed before the 1200 miles home. Problem is I didn't use synthetic, as everyone here has suggested. Big deal or not? Also I'm at 54,000 miles, do I wait till 60,000 and get the service. What should I get done. How much $$$ will it cost. The car is beautiful and I want to give it all it deserves.

Any advice will be helpful.
Thanks

 

The oil is no big deal for 1200 miles. You could change it out now if you wanted, but I would prob just wait to hit 3k miles and then change it out for some synthetic.

Wait to get the service. I don't think you are gaining anything getting it early.

 

your fine, you aren't turboed

 

It will live, but I would change it to synthetic in 2k miles if you ask me and go from there...

 

Dont worry about it, change as soon as you can use full syn 5w40 is yur best bet, and remember to get the Bug Mann filter actually gives you a little more oil then the smaller sized one. IF you really want to make sure you didnt do anything wrong, before you change oil run seafoam in the engine put it in 500ish miles before you change it and when you change your oil you will know that the engine is cleaner then when you bought it.

 

Ironman, 500 miles seems WAY too long for running seafoam in your crankcase. If you run the seafoam for like 15 mins, it'll do the trick freeing up a bunch of the sludge. So if you continue to drive for 500 miles with all of that free'd up chunky stuff, it is all going through the filter to the oil pump. It's going to clog the sh*t out of that oil screen, and in turn possibly causing your oil pump to fail from working too hard. Why not just drive about 30-50 miles...your crankcase will be clean, and you won't put any pressure on the oil pump, and you won't clog up the oil screen.

just my .02 cents.

LampyB.

 

You are fine. Since it was a long road trip, the car was up at temp for a long time. Most problems come from short drives & lots of stop & go.

Just change it when you get a chance with a quality synth.

 

Sorry to ask something not related to this topic; what is seafoam and where can you get it? Is it a good idea to use it once in a while to clean the crankcase?

 

Never mind. I did a search and found answers. :P

 

I was under the impression that full syn was mostly for the turboed cars. Is it critical that i feed my 2.8 full syn too?