Audi UK "Long Life Service"

Yout paranoia is very irritating. You should seek help for that. New oil is light brown and VAG dealers are not in the habit of cheating. If you feel cheated out of 300,00 UK be a man and accuse your dealer!

Ronald

Some people in Audi-sport.net would tell you otherwise, it's not unheard of, I would say that diesels have a habit of blackening the oil real fast, so I would say that it prob has been changed.

If your a bit worried that it has not, just go into a local independant and get them to change it, shouldnt cost no mroe than 40 quid then you will know.

Another good sign is to look at that oil filter, does it look new? if so then it shows they have done some work :)

Ronny

I have has a similar experience, although my car is petrol. When the car was new it took a few thousand miles for the oil to go off colour at all - partly due to the amount it used and hence the amount of new oil I had to put in it!

When I took it for the first service after 19,000 motorway miles I expected to hardly be able to see the oil level on the dipstick again - it should be so clean - however after getting the car home after the service the oil, although definitely cleaner, did not look brand new.

I have another reason to believe it was only partly changed - I was invoiced for only 4 liters of oil, unless they made an error, and my car holds quite a bit more than that (it's a V6).

Having said all this, the car has been great and the engine still sounds like it did the day it arrived on my driveway so i'm trying not to worry about it.

Diesels discolour the oil much more quickly than petrol engines however after 20 miles i'd expect the oil to be light grey at worst. My wife has a Peugeot diesel which I service myself and the new oil stays clean after a change for at least a couple of hundred miles.

This I know. Not only from decades of car ownership, but also because I have some of the VAG uber-oil for topping up. What is in the A4 after 20 miles is black, not light brown, not grey, but black. Pretty much the same colour as before it was serviced. Except theres more of it. Hence my concern.

and VAG dealers are not in the habit of cheating.

perhaps not. I hope to be persuaded that they have not. In any event non-performance is not necessarily about cheating punters out of money for its own sake - it more often than not is about individual technicians cutting corners to get through the day.

If you feel cheated out of 300,00 UK be a man and accuse your dealer!

Exactly what I'm doing tomorrow. They also failed to correct a warning light malfunction (although they claimed they had) and left the damn thing reading kilometres instead of miles too - so I'm not exactly starting from ground zero in the development of my "paranoid" suspicions regarding the completeness of the service. They're not around today and I thought I'd seek comments from owners to see if, for example, it is perfectly normal for Audi diesels to have black oil 20 miles after a service, (I have after all never previously owned either an Audi or a diesel) or if my "paranoia" about the motor trade really was ill founded for once.... in which case my rehabilitation may become a work in progress :)

Perhaps I'm being a bit of a ranter and I admit to being premature in voicing dark suspicions- but it's precisely because of the reputation enjoyed by VAG that I feel disappointed by this experience. I also own an Alfa and thus naturally expect any encounter with a main dealer to result at best in things not being done or at worst in my car actually being harmed in some way.... that said, they always managed to leave me with an Italian sump full of light brown oil....

I take it you took it to an authorised Audi dealer?

Being a diesel, the synthetic oil will turn black within a few miles of use, that is quite normal.

All UK Audi dealers have to adhere to a standard called "HSO", a German standard smiliar to "BS" or "ISO" in the UK.

It would be more than the dealers franchise agreement worth to charge for work not carried out.

And finally, please bear in mind that even though you wish to have the car serviced outside the dealer network, an Audi dealer history holds a lot more sway in the cars resale history and any future goodwill warranty claims against Audi....For example if your windscreen de-laminates Audi UK will replace it up to 10 years from date of registration if you show goodwill to them by having it serviced by a main dealer.

I did.

I had not realised that this could happen in so few miles.

I can see that.

I'd prefer to keep the relationship going for the reasons you set out. My opening rant probably reflects my experience of other main dealer networks. I moved to an independent with my Alfa not for cost reasons but because I wanted to keep the car for some time and realised that I simply could not trust main dealers to do what they said.

I have heard that what official dealers do is vacuum the oil out of the engine, rather than let it drain through the plughole. Can't certify that one, though, as this is just something I got wind of.

JP Roberts

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