Hey guys. I ran a search on this, but there is so much clutter with anything do with "oil" that I couldn't get a straight answer. I am looking at a 2001 A4 1.8t with 73k on it. The car just had its 70k service done, and the 60k was done as well. The owner has the receipts to show everything being checked and OK'd by the Audi dealer. BUT, he only had the oil changed at the 60k and 70k intervals, "per the audi dealer's instructions."

This goes against everything I've heard about the 1.8t, and turbo-charged motors in general. My MR2 Turbo rarely broke 3500 miles between oil changes, and I thought that was similar for the 1.8t. But this guy has the records from a dealer, and the car being checked out OK at those intervals of 10k miles between oil changes.

No sludge on the oil fill cap...I don't know how else to check...the car does not leak or burn oil either.... Should I steer away from this car?

I need some $.02 from some experience if possible.

Thanks

 

you can go 10k miles with synthetic, but with the 1.8t engine and the abuse the oil goes through in it, i do it every 3k or so miles.

 

Recommended oil change intervals keep increasing. It used to be that 3k was always recommended, but change intervals are up well over double that now. Manufacturers will let you do that even with junky Castrol oil.

10k still sounds like too long to me, but I like to change oil before the recommended change interval and run at least a synthetic blend.... full synthetic in the Audi. Most likely the previous owner was running that car with junk oil and waiting 10k miles to change it only after the dealer told him to.

The car is probably ok, but in general I would say that a lack of proper in maintenance in one area usually means a lack of maintenance in all areas of the car. In other words, if he doesn't even take time to change the oil on time, he is probably letting other maintenance issues slip as well. He doesn't do general up keep, he waits till something breaks completely before he fixes it.

I wouldn't want to make too big of a deal about it, but I would be a little concerned too.

 

I am fairly confident this guy wasn't a do-it-yourselfer, he paid full stealer charges for parts and labor at his service intervals. But if the dealer OK's the car, that makes me feel OK. I mean, the regular Audi Maintenance schedule checks a LOT of areas at those 60k and 70k marks. I think if an area was neglected, it would be neglect by the dealer since they are obviously the only hands that ever touched this car

I would never let my oil go for that kind of length, even in my '97 Cherokee...that's just how I am with my vehicles. This is not the only car I'm looking at, I just wanted to get some feedback on possible leverage to sway myself away from the car, or sway the seller down on his price.

 

Synthetic oil can go 10K mi. in the 1.8t without sludging.

 

But I have no way of knowing what kind of oil they used...I'm not familiar with Audi's service department enough to know what oil they use...is Synthetic standard?

 

Isn't there a way to tell if its mineral based or synthetic?

Anyways, I am pretty sure the previous owner of my car was using mineral, which was confirmed by the dealership he used to attend. I switched over... when you switch you should do an oil change like every 2 weeks (or so I have been advised since) for a couple of months. Reason being is mineral oil will depoit a lot of residue on your engine components where the synthetic will actually break down those deposits, loosen them off the componenets and eventually clog your oil pump. Doing frequent oil changes in the intial stages of the change over will reduce the changes of sludge.

For the life of me, I can not remember the website but it was something like "The oil bible". It was a really good resource on what happens when you switch over.

 

Just switch over to Mobil 1 or Castrol Syntec. No need for additional changes.

 

Try "Bob's the oil guy" site.

However, nothing bad will happen. Get the records of oil changes. Switch over to synthetic, use the larger oil filter from Mann and change your oil every 5K miles.

I bought my A4 with 75K miles and now have over 150K without any sludge or oil pressure issues.