I'm supposed to take my car in for the oil change at Park Place. I was told Audi is now recommending 15W40 weight oil for the TT. That's what Park Place is using right now. I've been putting synthetic oil in my car--I believe 5W30. I think that's what I was originally told to use. But the 15W40 seems pretty hard to find. Anyone have any suggestions? Is there a high performance parts place in town that might have it?

Also, I asked Park Place about the Haldex service at 20,000 miles. They told me that the Haldex oil doesn't need to be changed? Is this true? I heard that there was a kit that had to be ordered at 20,000 for the service.


Thanks

 

Got Wal-Mart?

 

And other fine stores. ;-)

 

Ack!

 

Standard for service to charge $45 for synthetic at 10k service?

 

They carry 15W40 synthetic at Walmart? I was told by someone at Autozone the stuff is used in high performance engines, i.e. for Viper, Porsche, etc. He said not too many people carry it. I'll check Walmart out, though.

 

I use 15W50. My dealer stocks it.

I don't know if 15W40 exists.

 

My dealer charges $20.00 for Mobil 1

 

I just checked Mobil 1's website. They don't make 15W40. I'll check to see if I can use 15W50.

Thanks

 

Your dealer is following suit with a lot of other Audi dealers on this one.

I've wrangled with this quite a bit in the past couple of months, and I found only two dealerships in the Chicagoland area who knew about the Haldex oil change. I did not ask my previous dealer, since I had no plans on going back to them (McGrath), so they may also know about it. The only two that knew (I called *all* chicagoland dealers except McGrath) was both of the Laurel Audi dealerships.

One dealership even told me that it absolutely does not need changing until at least 100,000 miles, and they refused to change it at my request. They said if I insisted, they would charge a nominal fee since it is extra non-warantee work. I hung up on that guy (who happened to be the service manager, ugh).

Bottom line, your car's Haldex clutch oil and filter require changing every 20,000 miles as prescribed in Audi's regular warantee maintenance service list. Most dealers are oblivious to this fact due to the fact that the TT is the only car in the Audi line with the Haldex system, and the Torsen system does not require this. Since the TT has only been around for a little over 2 years, most people have not yet gotten to 20,000 miles until recently, so it is only now coming to the attention of dealers.

I suspect that a Volkswagen/Audi dealership would be aware of this, since Volkswagons have had Haldex units on their cars for a while now, and I'm sure many Volkswagons with the '4-motion' setup have reached 20,000 miles. Unfortunately though, I've seen time and time again that many Volkswagon/Audi combo dealerships tend to suck. Generalization? Yes. Observation of people who post here? Also true.

So, you need to press this issue with your dealer, and if he refuses, either find another dealer who is adequately informed about the cars they work on, *or* get an AoA representative involved and have them "teach" your dealership.

Do *not* let it slip and not get it done at all. You're asking for serious problems down the road if you just ignore it.