Hello,

I've got a 98 Audi A4 with the 1.8T motor. As you likely know there are being recalls on that exact motor as it is due to engine goo and sludge. From what I have heard it is mainly due to running standard oil through the motor and synthetic usually seems to work a lot better. That being said, I am planning on flushing out my motor, as I do not know how much standard oil has been run through the car and/or how much sludge it currently has in it. It only has 33k miles on it, so I'm not too concerned, but just to be safe and make myself feel better, I'm going to flush it. My question is do I need to take it somewhere and drop the full $100 smacks to get this done, or is there any possible way I can do this by myself for a cheaper cost?

Thank you for all suggestions.

 

with only 33k, you could have been using syrup as oil and be fine haha. not really, but you get the point. mine has 188k on the clock and its fine. ive always used good oil, but idk about the owners for the other 166k miles

 

Hes right, bit if you really feel you need to flush it, use seafoam in the crankcase or something similar

 

Hey colony

what oil do you use?

 

i change on the seasons. when i have cash to blow i use royal purple. i use castrol 10 30 in the summer and 10 40 in the winter. i used to use mobil 1 but then i read an article that made me believe castrol is better. i always use a k&n or royal purple filter every oil change too

 

im a noob and sorry for the noob question.

what is the difference between 10 30 and 10 40 and why do you change them in the every season?

Im currently live in San Diego where the weather is mostly hot and im using 5 40 for my a4.

 

San Diego is probably one of the most stable cities for year round climate. You can run the same oil all year. Hell that's what I do and we can have 100 degree variances between summer and winter.

 

Same here. If you'd rather not use Seafoam to clear out yer motor, you could always just change the oil more often for a while. When I bought my sedan back in 2008 it had a mild sludge problem. I ran conventional oil through it (to save $) and changed it every 1000 miles for a summer. Cleaned that sumbitch right up

 

If you're afraid of using seafoam there's also auto-rx (google it) which is really safe and works better. I've also noticed that lately alot of mechanics sell/use something called force-1, not sure how good it is but it's pretty widespread over here.

 

So if I was going to use a product such as auto-rx (or similar), how exactly would I go about doing that? Also what exactly does a place like Jiffy-Lube or any other professional shop do when they charge you that $100?
Thanks for the responses.