teelo

Do current owners service their cars before the recommended intervals ? In terms of oil changes, does one wait 10,000 miles or 1 year before changing ?

ecpChris

I do my own oil changes in between services

///M Traitor

With a quality synthetic oil, I have no problem going 10,000 miles between oil changes. I have submitted many oil samples to blackstone labs for analysis and never got close to a 0 TBN. This number represents the remaining life of the used oil. It's the filtering capacity of the filter that I worry about at higher intervals.

With my driving ill only be at ~7k per year so I'm good with that for oil and filter.

For those that follow my thinking, you could always replace your oil filter midway between long-term oil changes.

Check Amsoils website. They put over 100k miles on a big-rig on the same oil (never changed) and found no signs of abnormal wear compared to normal intervals. They were using a sophisticated filtration system however.

DrCondor

Yes to 10k. On my Audis I have done an initial oil change @ 1,000 (old habits), but have generally stuck with 10k intervals, using only Castrol Syntec/Castrol Edge. I did aperiodic oil tests on the RS4, and there were no anomolies. At sale, the RS4 had 110,877 on her, and was consuming a quart every 2,500 miles...the car showed only minimal oil consumption through 50,000 miles, and this very gradually increased over the successive miles.

Break in brilliant and tight engines per spec, exercise them as designed, and they will treat you well.

Lazydog

I too have only done the 10K and have not had any problems with this.

///M Traitor

YIKES!!!! I'd say I quart of oil every 2500 miles is an anomaly. LOL. Are you sure you didn't mean 25k miles?

DrCondor

This was not until 100,000+ miles. BMW converts may not be aware of an infamous Audi letter that went out early in the RS4's production. It stated that one quart per thousand was normal (which I find ridiculous). I would have to dig into my records and find the oil analyses, but I recall Miss Piggie burning no measurable oil through the first three oil changes. Apparently some early RS4 adopters didn't follow breakin...or something...I expect they are some of the same people who maintain that all RS4's become carbon choked.

Dr Chill

I send used oil analysis on every other oil change. The UOA's seems to suggest that 10,000 may be about 2000 miles too long. I do 7500 miles.

///M Traitor

Very perceptive of you on the BMW convert. My previous car was an E36 M3 with 165k miles on it and a supercharger system. It only burned 1/2 a quart in about 8k miles. I drove the thing HARD too.. If I had a car that sucked down a quart in 1000 miles, I would be hard pressed to find a justification for that.

DrCondor

Same here...I followed much of the early chatter on RS4's, and decided that many may have abused them during breakin (1500 miles). It is a very close tolerance engine, and I drove mine hard but only after breakin...and in central New York there is ample opportunity to do so, and very little stop-and-go driving in which to get stuck. So I think my experience was ideal, and while the S6 is really perfect for my needs, I will miss that car and am glad it went to a real car guy.