# 10K oil change intervals--GRAPHIC PICS!



## Jack Watts (Jul 19, 2015)

Since I know that there is a lot of hand-wringing by many (not all) at the long oil change intervals prescriped by VW, I thought I'd show what 120K of 10K dealer oil changes looks like in my '09' 2.5L VW. I removed the valve cover to replace the PCV valve and here's what I found: 



A couple of random thoughts: 

-I'm not actually a fan of intervals just on mileage. I think this car saw a lot of highway mileage. 10K OCI on a a ton of short trips, and it likely wouldn't look that good
-the 2.5L is not a 2.0T. I have one of those also, and I won't go 10K on it. 
-since it was VW dealer-serviced, it has only used the correct oil. A non-502-rated oil may not have fared that well. 
-the left side had a little more varnish, though it's not as "orangy" as it seems in the photo. the dark streaks weren't hard deposits, just oil (they wiped right off). 

It appears that with reasonable driving habits the recommended interval and dealer oil on the 2.5L seems to work out just fine.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

Not that it matters, but Mercedes changed to 10k/2yr services in 98. As the lead diag tech, I just sat back and waited for all the engines that were going to fail.

It never happened [I left in 2011]. With the correct oil and filter, it should easily go 10k/1yr. Typically, it gets a bad rap from people that use cheap oil and filter.


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## tagsvags (Nov 25, 2005)

IMO if you are driving on the highway for many miles/km. The 10k oil change with the proper 502.00 oil may be fine.
But I don't have a chance to do that these days so I do 1 year or 5K miles. Just my 0.02.


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