[stevieboy]

I know this has been covered before but I'll ask again. Has anyone had their 1st variable service yet? How many miles did you get?

Ive had my car a week now and done 700 miles but the service indicator is showing 8600 miles to go, along way short of 30000.

Or is it that just the first service needs to be completed with low miles?

 

[dsmit221]

Has your car been set up on Long Life Service?? Seems to be on Standard []

 

[stevieboy]

That crossed my mind but I thought all new golfs came with longlife servicing as standard?

 

[simfin]

Mine is the same, and so is a another Golf that I know of as well. Either the mileage will settle down, they have been set for standard servicing, or we are all thrashing them within an inch of their lives? Not likely during the run in period.

 

[danny842003]

is this a 2.0 or 1.9? becuas ei no that in the A3's the 2.0 only does 20k where as the 1.9 does 30k.

 

[stevieboy]

If my car is set up for longlife sevicing, why does the display show 850 miles and 361 days to service when it is 10 days old with 1000 miles on the clock. Surely the time aspect should be in the region of 720 days?

 

[ChrisB]

As far as I am aware, if your Mk5 is set to variable servicing then there will be a sticker on the engine cover saying that it is and this was stuck on at the factory. This is due to it requiring the long life oil and this sticker is there as a constant reminder.

Alternatively, I believe the sticker on the boot floor should indicate what servicing schedule the car is set to. There have been posts on this topic previously about the mk4 so could be worth searching.

 

[radox]

The car is still running in. Give it at least a couple of thousand miles before relying too much on the miles-to-go figure.

Mines always been indicating that a service would be required about 18,000 miles. Now I've just done over 10,000miles it looks like that first service mileage is moving up slowly. (Which I'm relieved about). I'm not expecting it to go 30,000 miles before the first service because the car is new and I still feel its running-in. Also I wouldn't want a brand new car to go 30,000 miles before the garage got to look at it again!

Stuart
http://www.stuartdalby.co.uk/vwgolfmk5

 

[simfin]

Stuart,

That is fair enough, but why do our cars show less than 365 days to service due. As mentioned above it should be double this for a 30,000 mile or 2 year service schedule - How many days does yours indicate.

I am getting the impression that a batch of cars out there have been set up for the wrong service regime. i.e fixed not variable.

 

[Tooks]

Mines due in this week and will be about 9300 miles.

If it wasn't set to variable, then why isn't the service indicator showing service due at 10000 miles? I think the 30000 claim should be taken with a pinch of salt. I've had an Audi A2 before and I only ever managed about 18000 between services on that, and the first one was very early IIRC.

 

[stevieboy]

I telephoned vw customer services today about this and they couldnt help me, shock. I then phoned the dealer who didnt seem too clued up either, they said it seemed to be set on fixed servicing but it would have to be booked in to check, so its going to the garage in about 2 weeks. My concern is not the mileage but the days to go figure which is showing 360 days.

Something else Ive got to think about is what oil is in my car because if it is set to fixed servicing without longlife oil, a simple switch to longlife servicing is not possible without an oil change. And who is going to pay for that?

I checked on the engine cover and on the boot floor I cant see a sticker indicating longlife servicing.

 

[kenl]

Could someone please give a tutorial on how to check how long/how many miles to service?

Mine is a 1.6 petrol (2005 model) with multi-function computer (no SATNAV).

Thanks.

 

[stevieboy]

Turn ignition on but do not start engine press and hold trip reset,

watch display change to miles to go to service and then days to go.

 

[radox]

My car's approaching 11,000 miles and is indicating a service will be required in about 8,000 more miles or about 600 days. The number of days has always been a really high figure but since I do so many miles I've never paid much attention to this because it's always going to be the number of miles remaining which will determine when the service is done.

Hope that helps,
Stuart
http://www.stuartdalby.co.uk/vwgolfmk5

 

[Tooks]

As mentioned above, mines booked in for its first service next week.

VW want ?175 for the first service!![:O]

Are they taking the P$%s or what?!

They're also not sure if the car is on long life servicing or fixed, but admitted that 9300 miles didn't really fit with either...

Bloody cars...

 

[simfin]

?175 LOL:

Always amazes me that when you by a new car, the ever so helpful, knowledgable salesman (not....) informs you, "oh yes Sir, Servicing is very reasonable - less than ?100 for the first and around ?150-200 there after".

They are all full of it. Makes me glad I paid my Service package, because if this is the cost of the servicing to be expected (How much will the 2nd service be []). I am going to be quids in covering 20,000 miles a year.

ALSO looks like our cars are definitely set for fixed servicing, If RADOX's shows 600 odd days left, how can mine at 4 weeks be OK with around 350 - Someone at the factory has screwed up on batch of vehicles I reckon.

ALSO - Radox have you checked for this sticker? in the engine bay that indicates long life servicing - Mine has not got any stickers.

 

[Tooks]

Just spoke to several VW dealers, including my supplying dealer in Leicester and eventually got this info from a very knowledgeable sounding service guy...

The dealer in Leicester confirmed that all of the cars that leave the VW factory are filled with Long Life oil, and have the necessary sensors electronics to operate with Long Life service intervals. However, the dealer is supposed to reset the mileometer/service display for the Long Life service setup. This is because in some "harsh conditions" markets (eg Sweden) the car should be run with 10000 mile service intervals.

The dealer has put it's hands up and admitted they must have forgotten to set the service display for Long Life. They said they could change that though by hooking it up to the computer etc.

The dealer in Leicester is not that convenient though, so I called some more local ones and was told by the knowedgeable guy mentioned above that 9300 was way too early for a Golf Diesel to be in for a service, especially if it's been running up and down the A1. He said to pop the car down to him, he would hook it up and he would change the service indicator back to Long Life if possible, but otherwise would reset it for another 10000 miles and then change the indicator to Long Life at that service. If he reset to Long Life now, then that would stretch the current oil too far, unless they changed the oil and filter at the same time...

He reckons that most Golf diesels set to Long Life come in at around 18000/19000 miles for a 1st service anyway, so that would be in keeping with that.

So basically, all Golf's filled with Long Life oil at factory, but service indicators need to be set by the local market to Long Life if the climate is deemed suitable!

He did mention that some dealers might leave your car set to distance/time service intervals to make sure that they see you again in the service dept sooner rather than later! They wouldn't possibly stoop to such lows would they?! []

 

[radox]

I do have the door pillar sticker which says what the manual says it should if your car is configured for long-life variable service intervals.

In response to Tooks last post, I am sceptical that local dealers are required to reset something for the car to function correctly in variable service interval mode. Rather I was under the impression that they have only have to reset the car back to normal fixed interval servicing regime if required by a harse environment.

I think all VWs leave ready for variable long-life servicing. I'd be interested in hearing what the VW dealer finds when he checks Tooks car. I think they will find it is already set to variable long-life servicing.

Stuart
http://www.stuartdalby.co.uk/vwgolfmk5

 

[Tooks]

Right, just got back from a helpful VW dealer - hope my boss didn't mind my lunch hours... [:I]

He hooked the car up and fiddled with settings on the computer for ages. The car was set up for variable servicing, but the maximum value for miles travelled before the car flagging for service was set at 9300... In other words, the variable service program can be set up to show a service is required no matter what, between the ranges of 9300 and 20000 miles. It seems the variable servicing can be made less variable... [!] He showed me a recent VW UK instruction which stated that the maximum 30000 mile service interval had been revised down to 20000 miles, following instructions from VW in Germany. [:O]

He had no idea why it was set at 9300 (they weren't the supplying dealer by the way) but stated that the onboard ECU hadn't shown anybody accessing it since it was built and shipped, so most likely the VW dealer in Leicester didn't do the PDI properly.

Anyhow, now all fixed, and the mileage to go before service now flashes up after startup for a few seconds without touching anything (like my TT used to) whereas before I had to push the trip reset button with just the ignition switched one click.

It's now showing 9700 miles to go before service required, which would amount to about 19000 miles before service which was much more like I was expecting.

The techie said that all of the memory in the ECU, eg miles driven, how hard and in what temp etc was all still there and would be part of the Long Life service calculations, hence I suppose the figure to go being 9700.

Incidentally, he's also setup the function which tells me the washer fluid is low, which wasn't set before!

All the above they did FOC by the way, so I suppose I should mention that they are Vindis VW (St Ives nr Huntingdon branch). They certainly listened to me and agreed that it was odd it required service so soon when they could have just fobbed me off and said it needed one anyway... Well done to them.

 

[simfin]

Tooks,

Just got back from my dealer (another VINDIS), ref the Service settings. They did not have time to check out the computer readout thingy, but agreed that it looks as though mine is set to Fixed servicing. I mention that Vindis-St Ives, had some info about the mileage change from Germany. My VINDIS dealer had not heard of this. I will gte it in and looked at next week hopefully.

ANYWAY, what should I do? I am paying a monthly service package, so I reckon I might as well get it serviced more often and get my money's worth, I will check with VW finance (they administer the service packages) to make sure that a full service would be done though. e.g Oil change etc