Audi quietly changed CREC 3.0 recommended oil from 5W40 to 0W30

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Yesterday | 12:44 PM

BeMurda

Thread Starter

AudiWorld Member

Joined: Apr 2020

Posts: 61

Likes: 21

Audi quietly changed CREC 3.0 recommended oil from 5W40 to 0W30

I know the piston ring issue has been discussed to death, but I'm not sure whether most people realize that Audi quietly changed the recommended viscosity for the same CREC engine year over year for 2019, which is pretty unheard of, as well as the oil standard from VW502 to VW504 (the latter having much lower deposits). All done without a backwards revision for earlier year models, perhaps to avoid admitting a mistake.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...63516-0001.pdf

I just wanted to put this out there directly for 2015-2018 CREC 3.0 owners to switch to 0W30, because shops and dealers will still default to VW502 by looking at the 2018 and earlier maintenance schedules. I have been putting Mobil 1 ESP 0W30 in my engine for the last two oil changes. I have zero oil consumption (that I am aware of) and hope I will never have to deal with that.

Last edited by BeMurda; Yesterday at 12:44 PM.

Yesterday | 07:51 PM

dcdak16

AudiWorld Junior Member

Joined: May 2025

Posts: 34

Likes: 12

Thanks for the info. My 2018 CREC owners manual states to use the oil spec and viscosity shown on the sticker under the hood.. of course there is no sticker there.

I have been using 507 spec oil (5w-30) as I have a ton left over from my tdi, with a 5,000 mile oil change interval.