OC schedule and oil grade assuming no GP filter on AU/NZ GTI 2.0T

[Omegaspeedy]

Hi guys,

I just bought a 2021 GTI and bought a capped maintenance pack for 3years 45000km.

First oil change on this schedule is at 15K. They will let me do my own changes in between without affecting the warranty as there’s no way I’m going out to 15K OC’s.

I’m going to dump at 1000K then 7.5k then they’ll do their one at 15K then I’ll do mine again at 7.5K after......

Assuming we don’t have the GP filter on our models (which would require a low SAP oil per the VW user manual), I’d like to hear what schedule you are running and what oil your using. Are you using a new sump bung each time?

I’m thinking either Castrol Edge 5w40, Shell Helix Ultra 5w40 or god forbid, Mobil 1 0w40.

Any advise from the gurus would be much appreciated.

This is my first VW so still learning what this motor likes. Not a 20 grade oil guy.

Cheers James.

[brad]

Your thinking regarding change intervals is old fashioned and you need to stick with oil that has the correct VW approvals.

For that model it is probably VW 504.00 but even VW 502 is fine for 15k intervals (I've done UOA a few times and the oil reads like new) unless you meet one of the "severe service" criteria in the owners manual. The viscosity will be either 5w-30 in 504 or 502 or 5w-40 in 502.

If you have the metal drain plug then you can swap in a copper washer and anneal it at every change or replace the whole assembly (10 sump plugs are $16 on Aliexpress) or buy a magnetised plug and a dozen spare crush washers.
If you have the plastic plug then I'd change each time. They are only $5/5 units on Aliexpress


I'm at 205,000+km. Have generally been doing 15k intervals with a few 10k changes when I was doing a crazy amount of short trips and heavy traffic. My engine runs like a dream and uses around 200ml of oil between changes.

[Hillbilly]

Whatever you do use a VW APPROVED oil and most are 504/507 oils nowadays Like Penrite Enviro+ or Castrol Prof III. Or this one which is available in shops. As they are longlife oils and have a 30,000km change rate overseas why would you waste money on 7500km changes.

Living in the 60's ????

[Omegaspeedy]

Good effort Brad with 205000 and great to hear consumption is still low. I came from Hyundai GDI and they chew oil via the high pressure fuel pump cam and timing chain. Also fuel diluters. I don’t know this motor well or how hard on oil it is, but I was assuming GDI + Turbo equals a hard life on oil. Did your UOAs come out rock solid?

I certainly want to get rid of the factory fill sooner than later, no harm in that except expenditure. Of course I’ll use a VW rated and approved oil, likely a 30 or 40. I want to err on the safe side until I actually know how hard the engine is on oil then I could back off.

[h100vw]

You're over thinking. Dropping the oil at 1000K is just unnecessary. Leave it until 7500.
I too feel 15k is a long way but do yourself a favour and use decent oil filters not Ryco. I see too many of them at work and they are all collapsed when the come out.
10k intervals or annual changes is kind of my schedule. Older engines mind you.

[Omegaspeedy]

Cheers h100vw, I'll only use VW Mann filters bought direct from VW. Just worried about the amount of manufacturing debis in the oil. Yes the filter catches 99.9% but no harm in getting rid of that initial mix of crud that isn't helping matters. Any thoughts on the mechanism that is causing collapsed filters? Clogged, poor manufacturing?

[brad]

Good effort Brad with 205000 and great to hear consumption is still low. I came from Hyundai GDI and they chew oil via the high pressure fuel pump cam and timing chain. Also fuel diluters. I don’t know this motor well or how hard on oil it is, but I was assuming GDI + Turbo equals a hard life on oil. Did your UOAs come out rock solid?

I certainly want to get rid of the factory fill sooner than later, no harm in that except expenditure. Of course I’ll use a VW rated and approved oil, likely a 30 or 40. I want to err on the safe side until I actually know how hard the engine is on oil then I could back off.

My UOAs came back with no viscosity loss and the additive pack was still strong. No contaminants. That was on 504.00/507.00 with 15k intervals and the car has been remapped since 30k km. That would have been 3 different brands of oil as well. Valvoline Pro, Castrol Edge and Shell Helix. When I started working 5000km oil change intervals were the norm (I had customers I saw monthly) so short oil changes aren't foreign to me.

Hillbilly and I disagree on many things but he is right in saying that 504/507 is good for up to 30k and 7500km changes are wasteful in money (and bad for the environment).

IMO, early oil change is nuts. In these engines you want to keep some crap in the oil so they can run-in properly. You also need pressure behind the rings as there is minimal ring tension and the bores are ridiculously hard (Nikasil type coating??). So don't baby it to much and keep some boost happening (I'm not saying thrash it but feel free to use lots of half - threequarter throttle runs up to 4k+).

Keep in mind these aren't a 202 Holden that are full of casting swarf and crap machining tolerances put together by somebody that doesn't care (pulled a 202 down once and it had 2 different size pistons ex-factory). The tolerances, build and cleanliness on assembly are a lot better.

My background is Automotive Engineering and I'm employed in machinery commissioning and reliability engineering. This isn't stuff I read on the internet.