how much for your first service/15k?

[Transporter]

Yeah paying in advance like that could well be the best way to make sure they don't over service your car

Or end up with badly maintained car in poor condition after 3 years.

That's extreame and not VW engine.



Owner of this car didn't have many oil changes, that's for sure.

[hooba]

BMW 328CI - without an oil change.



What Happens When You Don

[Transporter]

Yeah..., that's cruelty against the cars, mate!

The brown spots starting to appear on the dipstick are the tell tales that sludge and varnish is starting to settle in the engine. The dipstick fully covered with varnish showing different shades of brown color, that's telling that engine was run with minimum oil in sump for extended period of time.

This 5S-FE engine in Camry was run for 3 years without the oil change, at 200,000+km who knows how many time it saw a new oil?

[Bel]

I've been told that I am to have a service at 1000kms - it's free by the way (Bought the car 10 days ago from Melville VW).. The car is running fine, other than clutch/brake/tyre smell occassionally but I will be coming up to 1000kms in the next week. Plus they have to fix the window tint that the f**ked up grrr.

So is it worth having that service and what exactly are they going to do? Melville is a total pain in the butt for me to get to (only went there cos it was the only dealership in WA at the time that had a new Polo in stock - okay so I didn't like it and ended up buying a GOLF 118TSI lol Wangara should have tried harder to sell to me the week before)

[Maverick]

I've been told that I am to have a service at 1000kms - it's free by the way (Bought the car 10 days ago from Melville VW).. The car is running fine, other than clutch/brake/tyre smell occassionally but I will be coming up to 1000kms in the next week. Plus they have to fix the window tint that the f**ked up grrr.

So is it worth having that service and what exactly are they going to do? Melville is a total pain in the butt for me to get to (only went there cos it was the only dealership in WA at the time that had a new Polo in stock - okay so I didn't like it and ended up buying a GOLF 118TSI lol Wangara should have tried harder to sell to me the week before)

You should ask them but it will just be an inspection, they won't do an oil change or anything else.

[logger]

Your not wrong.

$13 Engine oil system flush
$13 Fuel system treatment
$ 2 Washer solution sachet
$35 Rotate and balance tyres
$63 Total

The dealer I use always asks about things like rotate/balance and has never asked nor charged for crap like fuel system or engine oil flush so it's only some dealers that do it but I'd like to know why they are using that washer sachet rubbish which blocks the wiper jets and could leave to a leak in the rear hatch area when Volkswagen stipulate that you must use their product (which is very reasonably priced).

You have a good dealer. But you already know that. They put the sachet stuff on top of the genuine VW stuff which is what I have been using.

When I dropped the car with ~ 14,500km on the clock, I clearly told them there was absolutely nothing wrong with the car and that I wanted the basic VW service. The service guy even queried how it drove. Steering pull or anything like that? No, straight as a die I said. So I was annoyed to find they did a rotate and balance and wish they had asked beforehand. Fortunately they subsequently accepted it was unnecessary and did not charge me for it when I questioned it.

But what really bummed me about this over servicing is that it lead to a further problem for me. After a few days I noticed that when driving on the highway or any flat road the steering wheel was rotated a couple of degrees from center. Just enough to annoy me - with one spoke ~ 1cm lower than the other. Steering still tracking straight though.

Initially I thought perhaps I hit a decent bump upsetting the alignment. But on reflection this had not occurred and I had a a strong feeling it only developed after the service and was related.

So with trepidation, I rang the service dept, explained the issue. How I knew I could have hit a bump, but had not. How I suspected their unnecessary wheel rotation had buggered things up. They assured me the rotate could not effect the steering. Whilst what the guy was saying made some sense, I tried to explain to him how the EPS works. Specifically how its center position is one that adapts dynamically based on the cars actual tracking. He clearly wasnt familiar with this concept. He agreed to rotate the wheels back to their original position - with the clear understanding it would be a goodwill gesture, it would make absolutely no difference and would simply confirm a wheel alignment was required. Bring the car in any time and they would swap the wheels back on the spot.
Prior to changing anything I needed a record of the fault. So I hooked my car up to VCDS, logged the fact that steering "angle -straight ahead" was minus 3.0 degrees. I then dropped by VW and they said I'd have to wait 1hr for them to rotate the wheels! I decided I would rather spend the hour rotating them back myself, one by one with the jack. Only reason I was going to have them do it was so it could be done in 10 minutes on the hoist instead of the hour it would take me. So I returned home, rotated the wheels back to their original corners and lo and behold the problem was fixed. Steering wheel was nicely centered again. VCDS indicating "angle -straight ahead" is zero degrees. No wheel alignment required. I then printed out the two VCDs logs, returned to service dept and the bloke who thought I was returning to book an alignment. He was very surprised as I showed him the hard data and had a a feed of humble pie. What is this VCDS thing he asked!

Couple of things to note.
1) If it aint broke dont fix it (Dont pay for them to rotate your wheels until it is really necessary)and
2) Electronic power steering will track the car straight even if there is an alignment issue somewhere (it is a clever piece of kit).

Better make at least one sentence on topic. For the record my service cost $300.

[Brian]

Couple of things to note.
1) If it aint broke dont fix it (Dont pay for them to rotate your wheels until it is really necessary)and
2) Electronic power steering will track the car straight even if there is an alignment issue somewhere (it is a clever piece of kit).

Agree with 1) above and thanks for your usual interesting detail on another of VWs engineering marvels in 2).
Just a comment on how the wheel rotation could cause the car to track off-centre (or try to)
Wheel rotation is just swapping rear to front and not LHS to RHS, so with the rears on the front causing the car to track off-centre seems to indicate that one or both of the rears are wearing unevenly.
Have you checked them for scrubbing on the inside of the tread, which may indicate the rear suspension geometry is not quite correct?
The dealer did the rotation on my 118TSI at the 15k service and I've not noticed any difference in the steering wheel position, but since reading your post I've done a visual of the now front tyres and they seem OK to the naked eye.
Oh, and the service cost me $360 with the rotation and all of the additives

[REXman]

You have a good dealer. But you already know that. They put the sachet stuff on top of the genuine VW stuff which is what I have been using.

When I dropped the car with ~ 14,500km on the clock, I clearly told them there was absolutely nothing wrong with the car and that I wanted the basic VW service. The service guy even queried how it drove. Steering pull or anything like that? No, straight as a die I said. So I was annoyed to find they did a rotate and balance and wish they had asked beforehand. Fortunately they subsequently accepted it was unnecessary and did not charge me for it when I questioned it.

But what really bummed me about this over servicing is that it lead to a further problem for me. After a few days I noticed that when driving on the highway or any flat road the steering wheel was rotated a couple of degrees from center. Just enough to annoy me - with one spoke ~ 1cm lower than the other. Steering still tracking straight though.

Initially I thought perhaps I hit a decent bump upsetting the alignment. But on reflection this had not occurred and I had a a strong feeling it only developed after the service and was related.

So with trepidation, I rang the service dept, explained the issue. How I knew I could have hit a bump, but had not. How I suspected their unnecessary wheel rotation had buggered things up. They assured me the rotate could not effect the steering. Whilst what the guy was saying made some sense, I tried to explain to him how the EPS works. Specifically how its center position is one that adapts dynamically based on the cars actual tracking. He clearly wasnt familiar with this concept. He agreed to rotate the wheels back to their original position - with the clear understanding it would be a goodwill gesture, it would make absolutely no difference and would simply confirm a wheel alignment was required. Bring the car in any time and they would swap the wheels back on the spot.
Prior to changing anything I needed a record of the fault. So I hooked my car up to VCDS, logged the fact that steering "angle -straight ahead" was minus 3.0 degrees. I then dropped by VW and they said I'd have to wait 1hr for them to rotate the wheels! I decided I would rather spend the hour rotating them back myself, one by one with the jack. Only reason I was going to have them do it was so it could be done in 10 minutes on the hoist instead of the hour it would take me. So I returned home, rotated the wheels back to their original corners and lo and behold the problem was fixed. Steering wheel was nicely centered again. VCDS indicating "angle -straight ahead" is zero degrees. No wheel alignment required. I then printed out the two VCDs logs, returned to service dept and the bloke who thought I was returning to book an alignment. He was very surprised as I showed him the hard data and had a a feed of humble pie. What is this VCDS thing he asked!

Couple of things to note.
1) If it aint broke dont fix it (Dont pay for them to rotate your wheels until it is really necessary)and
2) Electronic power steering will track the car straight even if there is an alignment issue somewhere (it is a clever piece of kit).

Better make at least one sentence on topic. For the record my service cost $300.

That's a good story. Awesome stuff, nice work!!! People pooooooowwweeeerrrr!!!

[logger]

..Just a comment on how the wheel rotation could cause the car to track off-centre (or try to)
Wheel rotation is just swapping rear to front and not LHS to RHS, so with the rears on the front causing the car to track off-centre seems to indicate that one or both of the rears are wearing unevenly.
Have you checked them for scrubbing on the inside of the tread, which may indicate the rear suspension geometry is not quite correct?

Good suggestion. No need, because I reckon I know the cause. One of the rear wheels is an orphan. When the car was about two days old I got a puncture. The tyre was replaced with one manufactured in Australia, whereas the other three are ex France. As a result of the same event (don't ask) the wheel needed a buckle rolled out of it and a repaint after the tyre yard scratched it. So I see several contributing factors in descending order of likelihood; 1) Wheel diameter effected by repair, 2)Tyre from a different plant & batch has slightly different rolling resistance or circumference, 3) Wheel weight differing due to several extra coats of paint.
Whatever the subtle differences are between this unit and the other three, seems to be enough to effect the steering ever so slightly when fitted up front. So it will remain on the rear until such time as I fit 4 identical tyres again.

[Corey_R]

Yeah - the rear tyres of a hatch don't do anything other than stop you from dragging your butt on the ground

Hope it is just the tyre difference though! If you leave the rear tyres on the rear, at some point you're going to need to replace the fronts. If you are lucky, you'll then need to replace the rears the NEXT time you replace the fronts...