I am just starting to get comfortable with my 4 month old 2001 allroad. I thought I would put together a list of things I have come across that may help other new owners and may also help some of the knowledgeable veterans. Most of this stuff has been pulled from audiworld and other places..

Tires and Tire pressure:

Places I've used for tire purchases on-line and would use again:

http://www.tiresavings.com/
Falken, Semperit, Cooper - Tires that tirerack may not have. Also looks like the warehouse is in the NE ( Rhode Island). I live north of Boston and my order took a day to get. Website is not as good as tirerack but is still very functional.

http://www.tires.com/
A lot like tirerack.

http://www.tirerack.com/
Great website great to do business with and lots of tire information,

Places I have not purchased from but others have:

http://www.gosstire.com/
For the much loved Nokian tires. Have to call but all the people that have used Goss seem to be satisfied.

My personal tire choice:

This was a tough one. I had two cars to buy for this fall and with Christmas coming up I was on a budget. If I could have I would have bought the Nokian WR's. I was looking at the Falken ZE 512 ZIEX which people seem to like. However I thought I would try something different and report back here. I ordered Cooper Lifeliner Touring SLE-V and have been driving on them for a couple of weeks. I can report they are very quiet, great in the wet, and seem to hold the road well in the corners. Time will tell how they do in the snow and their overall wear.

FWIW I ordered Semperit Sport Grip dedicated snows for my wifes 2wd Infiniti G35 sedan. Again price was an issue having to buy both tires and wheels for this car. I went with the Sport Grips because they are H-Series snows, my wife does mainly HW driving, the price $66.00 ea for 255/60-16's and they seem to get favorable reviews by the people that own them. So far they seem to be quiet enough and handle OK. Just waiting for the white stuff .


Tire Pressure:
There was a thread a couple of weeks back discussing this. I always use the car's pressure recommendations for stock tire sizes regardless of manufacture. This assumes the tire have the same load specs. Others like to deviate from this. I was curious what was correct. It seems the opinions from experts vary drastically. So I would say do whats most comfortable to you. Here is an article that may help you decide:

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/tech/0208scc_tires/

FWIW - I emailed both Falken and Cooper in regards to this issue and they both recommended using the cars pressure sticker if the tire sizes were the same.

Oil/Air:

I was a bit taken back by Audi's oil change interval for the allroad, 10K wow. I know the car holds something over 7 quarts but 10K seemed long for me. I change my oil right after I purchased the car not knowing when the last oil change was done. I did my next one at 5K using regular Mobil 5w-30 Drive Clean. Then while surfing I discovered two helpful oil links. First was a long term synthetic oil test conducted by the people at Paradise Garage.

http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/oil-life.html

This article had some interesting facts. Like you could do more harm to your engine from too frequent oil changes. By just changing your filter on a car that does not use oil you can significantly increase change intervals. The most important thing was a pointer to this web site

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

The people on this web-site are fanatics about oil, and filters. I highly recommend taking a day to look over everything they have. After reading whats there I will start using either German Castrol 0w-30 (if I can find it), or Mobil 1 0w-40 for my allroad. I wrote an email to Mobil asking about using Mobil 1 5w-30 and they recommended against it as it does not meet Audi's oil spec for this car.

When I do an oil change this time I will do a Used Oil Analysis (UOA) to make sure I don't have any other problems with the engine. For a filter I think I will start using a Baldwin. Seems like they have very good flow rates and are well constructed. They are mainly truck suppliers but also have cross references to car filters. The allroad crosses to a Baldwin B1429.

Another thing about filters it seem Walmart's Supertech is very good oil filter, made by Champion one of the best suppliers of filters. Great buy if your Walmart carries them.
My allroad experience:

So far so good. I bought the car with 50K on it, currently I have 57K and did not get an extended warranty. My major problem so far has been a bad O2 sensor which I will replace this weekend. I love this car, will keep it stock and just enjoy the Audi allroad experience.

 

FWIW I would stick to the OEM or oil filters by MANN or Bosch. Other filters may fit, but their pressure relief valves are not set to an Audi spec. Nicely done and welcom to the family.

 

follow the links in "what oil for my car"<ul><li><a href="http://www.mobil1.com/index.jsp">http://www.mobil1.com/index.jsp</a</li></ul>

 

I know. Here is the correspondence that I had when I wrote to Mobil about oil recommendations.

My question to Mobil 1:

&gt;I recently purchased a 2001 Audi allroad and am considering using Mobil 1 5w-30 during my next oil change. I live in the Boston Ma area and would use this grade of oil year round.
I was at my local Costco and notice they sell Mobil 1 5w-30 and the box says it is formulated for newer cars. My car at the next oil change will have 60,000 miles on it. Is this oil appropiate ? Also do you sell a 5w-30 that is for older engines or is this the only labeled 5w-30 you have ? Thanks

Resonse 1 from Mobil 1:

&gt;&gt;What viscosity and API specifications does your owner's manual require for the engine motor oil

Answer from me:

&gt;&gt;&gt;According to the owners manual:

API Service SJ
ACEA A2 or ACEA A3

Quote from the book:

The engine oil which was first put into your engine has a viscosity SAE 0W-30. You can use this oil over all temperature ranges for normal driving. If engine oil viscosity grade 0W-30 is not available, you can also use SAE 5W-30 or SAE 5W-40

Final answer from Mobil 1

&gt;&gt;&gt;Mobil1 0W40 motor oil would be an excellent choice.

Not to say 5w-30 is bad, it does not meet Audi's spec and 0w-40 does. If you search BITOG you will find Mobil 1 0w-40 is on the low end of the 40 weight vicosity scale and matches up very competitavly with GC 0w-30. After all the research I have done I would not run M1 5w-30.. My opinion only.

 

I thought this also. Now that I have decided that it is probably safe to run a syn oil to 10K I wanted to get a robust filter. All the ones you listed are very good filters, however people that have cut open and tested a wide range of filters really love the Balwins. Great flow rates good filtering and built like tanks.

From the reading I have done it appears the high check valve pressures are less relevant with the lighter syn oils. Makes sense to me..

Now I hope extending my drain intervals will cause gas prices to drop a buck !

 

The reason the intervals are being extended is due to the high level of tolerance being maintained in an engine today. Mechanically they are far superior to even a few years ago.

IMHO 7500 miles on synthetic is fine.

 

Thats were UOA's come into play. You can find out just how far to run. I will start posting mine here. My first one should be towards the end of January.

I'm an average driver so it may be a good baseline.

 

I did a search on the forum for Baldwins and all I found was great for deisels..but they may not fit due to the large size in the 2.7t engine bay.

 

It must have the "Red Label" and must have "Made in Germany" on the back. Don't buy the Yellow Label, it's not the real thing.

You might have to go through every quart on the shelf. The workers might mix up the stock, or try and rotate it. People who know about the Red Label buy it and leave the yellow stuff. I keep an inventory of 10 quarts on hand.

Heck, I keep a quart at my desk for info to post on AW! LOL. 8 ^ )

 

So you are saying there are 2 German Castrol's one with a red label and one with a yellow label ?

Also there is some discussion that Castrol is discontinuing GC so Autozone stocks may dry up. I know the Autozone closest to my house in Danvers Ma. only had 2 qts. I did purchase 9 qts at the Autozone in Woburn (last of it on that shelf). There are people that hord this stuff. There was one guy on BITOG that has something like 130 qts at home.

If the GC does dry up I will go to M1 0w-40,, Good to have a back up I guess..