Which Oil?

[redbaron]

what oil is best for an octavia?

to be changed every 6-8 thou? hard use high temps?

not keen on longlife stuff / long serv interval.

[DGW]

I could suggest the longlife stuff, changed every 6 - 8K if you so wish, but I detect that you have a hangup about it. Perhaps you need to speak to Jon or Des. My guess is that you are looking for a 'specialist/racing' oil which us mere Skoda owners have no need of.

PS As to which oil is best for the Octavia, for the 1.8T engine it is any oil meeting spec VW 503 00 dated 01/97 or later. Period.

[redbaron]

not really denis.. but seems pointless to use long life oil then not use it a long time.. i assume something else optimised for a short life would be more useful.

i have used mobil one in the past and the motorsport version as well.. just wondered which worked best in 1.8 turbo?

[skodaw]

Have to agree with Denis on this one -- Both Castrol & Shell have done a hell of a lot of testing/development with VAG on these oils -- most of it with various variants of the 1.8T.

That is why although I won't be running mine on variable service either -- I will still use the oil,becuase it's the correct oil by the correct manufacterer.........but also cos it's free

[redbaron]

cool can you give col 5 litres of the free stuff and a filter tonight then?

[skodaw]

If I was on work that would be poss -- but I'm on me jollydays

[ncarring]

So to cut to the chase, what oils commonly available meet this VW spec then? Is it some fancy oil only available at VAG outlets, or do more commonly available oils meet the criteria - and I'm not talking about Mobil 1 .....

[DGW]

A list of suitable oils is here in our FAQs.

[ncarring]

Denis, every time I ask a question like that I feel stupid because you point me at the FAQ. Do you have the entire FAQ in your head, or is there some easier way to find stuff in there?

PS the answer to my question seems to be you have to go to your VAG outlet because I've never seen any of those oils available at retail outlets, although it does say the Castrol stuff is available from Halfords.

[DGW]

Nick, I bought 4 litres of Castrol SLX Longlife II from Halfords today. Re the FAQs, the 'useful' ones don't have a lot of prominence compared with the 'site' ones when you select FAQs, but they are there! The Links section is also well worth a scan.

[ncarring]

I'm sorry - I must be thick, but what do you mean, 'useful' and 'site' ?

The Links section is just so huge (and I think over-catalogued IMHO) that it would take me months to go through - again I'm always impressed by the way you come up with a relevant link within 5 minutes of a question being asked. A lot of surfing must have gone on there, methinks ....

Edit: Aha! I did just find something useful though. The search forums link at the top of the page works differently from the search box under the pictures and is much more powerful - it lets you search individual forums, for instance (yes I know that should say "fora" really).

[DGW]

Nick, I will try and be clearer since I can see that I may have inadvertently confused readers!

When you select FAQs, the top heading is Forum FAQ for information not shown below, and immediately below that is where the General and Technical Skoda FAQs are. However, those 'useful' FAQs are overshadowed by the Foruum Rules, User Maintenance, General Board Usage, and Reading and Posting Messages FAQs - ie the 'site' FAQs - which dominate the rest of the FAQ page. I think it is a problem of presentation - the General and Technical FAQs relating to Skodas are completely overwhelmed in the detail on the rest of the page. OK?

[RSOct22]

Just had my RS serviced (20k miles) and asked them for the fully synthetic oil. They used VAG's own -ie Quantum Synta 10-40. This costs

[DGW]

What year is your car, Steve, and are you on variable servicing or fixed?

[RSOct22]

Registered Feb 02. I had it serviced initially at 10k againn with fully synth oil. That dealer closed, so took it to the replacement on who are also Seat. Was told should have been on Variable - so didnt really need the 10k service!!.

I dont mind too much as I would prefer to have oil changed every 10k.

So... hopefully the 10/40 is ok - or should I have gone for the 0-30 and change that every 10k?

Cheers

Steve

[DGW]

Steve

VW 500 00 or VW 502 00 oils are fine for fixed service intervals, ie 10000 miles or 1 year. A VW 503 00 oil is mandatory for variable service intervals, ie 20000 miles or 2 years. I believe that once you start using the former oil(s), in theory you cannot then revert to variable service intervals later. Your car should have come coded as QG1 (variable service intervals) from new, and should now have been recoded as QG2 (fixed service intervals). All is explained in the Service Schedule booklet.

[GAFF]

Originally posted by skodaw in this post

Have to agree with Denis on this one -- Both Castrol & Shell have done a hell of a lot of testing/development with VAG on these oils -- most of it with various variants of the 1.8T.

That is why although I won't be running mine on variable service either -- I will still use the oil,becuase it's the correct oil by the correct manufacterer.........but also cos it's free

Have you ever heard of Castrol TXT, thats what the my main dealer uses,

[TaviaRS]

I use the long life oil and change it every 10k.

[DGW]

Originally posted by GAFF in this post

Have you ever heard of Castrol TXT, thats what the my main dealer uses.

Castrol TXT Softec Plus 5W-30 meets specs VW 502 00 and 505 00. As such it is suitable for Skoda Octavia petrol and diesel engines with fixed service intervals, ie QG0 and QG2.

[KLB]

Originally posted by DGW in this post

Castrol TXT Softec Plus 5W-30 meets specs VW 502 00 and 505 00. As such it is suitable for Skoda Octavia petrol and diesel engines with fixed service intervals, ie QG0 and QG2.

I'm getting really confused, now.

The FAQ says that VW503 00 is mandatory for petrol engines on variable service (long life). OK, I understand that.

Previously, you said that oils meeting VW 500 00 and VW 502 00 are suitable for engines on fixed service. Why are there two specs? What's the difference?

Now you say VW 505 00 is suitable for petrol and diesel engines on fixed servicing, as well.

My brain hurts :(

[ncarring]

Well Denis will no doubt give us the detail but it seems clear to me that VW 503 is a spec for a long-life oil, capable of withstanding 20k miles of use. VW 500, 501 and 502 are for more "normal" oils which need changing more regularly. The fixed service interval is only 10k miles.

Oils for diesel engines are generally higher spec'd than petrol engine oils because of the higher pressures IIRC. I think VW 505 is a spec for diesel engines primarily, which might make it suitable for petrol engines as well.

[Dutch4x4]

My dealer told me last week that the long-life stuff is capable of running 50,000 kms... :eek:

That is, they once had a car (don't know which engine) that ran along merrily up to 50k kms until the service light came on. So can be anything between 15k and 50k!

[Dutch4x4]

Adding to the above: so the owner of said car only came in for service once in all the three years he owned it before he p/x'ed it for a new one.

[fen_l&k]

Well...

Mine is at 28,700 miles (ish), equating to 45,920 km (if my maths is correct), and I still don't have a service indicator. I'm expecting it will automatically pop up at 29k, as 30k is the limit according to the supplying dealer. If it doesn't, then there's a fault somewhere. My miles are obviously easier on the car, as it doesn't think I need an oil change yet. However, I have also had to feed it about 2.5 litres of oil so far (SLX II).

I had a look on the Castrol web site after I got the car to check out the capabilities of the oil, so I'm not unduly worried about the service interval stretching out this far. However, once my 3 years or 60k is up (whichever is sooner) I think I may go for slightly shorter oil change intervals, especially as the engine gets older.

Cheers,

[ncarring]

Hmmm - mine will need its third service of the year sometime in October probably.