65 Plate Audi A3 Servicing.

[twodogron]

My Audi A3 Sport is now 5 years old, has had 5 previous scheduled Audi Services and to date has done just about 25,500 miles.....

The last service was done at 23,800 miles in Oct 2020...

The dashboard notification has popped up again on start up advising that a Service will soon be due in a few days time.

I am averaging less and less annual "mileage" due to less and less travel.... a combination of age, shrinking responsibilities and probably covid !!

My question, if anyone has the answer please.....

Can the Audi A3 onboard computer be programmed to react to a "Mileage" based Servicing schedule as mine appears to be "Time" based and reacts on an Annual basis....??

Can this be done or not ?

I am fully aware that I could just ignore the reminder but that is less than ideal, I'm also aware that under normal driving conditions Servicing needs to be done every 10,000 miles or Annually, whichever comes first... but this...., based on 3,000 miles per annum seems a little excessive !!!!!

Many Thanks,

Ron.

[Magnet]

Hello Ron, 

The answer to your in-bold question is a qualified yes. Qualified, since by the mileage you were doing, the service indicator should be set at an annual service. The alternative (if it’s still the same) is based on a higher annual mileage and is/was termed a Longlife service schedule, which often ran to 18k miles, or c18 months, whichever came first. 
If you swapped to this schedule, you would obviously save one service in 3 years. 
I would ask the question - why do you want to be governed by having this 6 year old car serviced at a main dealer, and if that is so important, why would you want to save the cost of one service in that 3 year period - by which time the car will be 9 years old? 
Short journeys are not good for vehicles, since they are seldom operating under optimum conditions, so getting the oil changed once a year is a sort of investment. 
If this were mine, I would be untrusting future servicing to a local trusted garage and insisting they use good quality parts. This should be cheaper than operating via. an 18 month schedule at Audi, and give you the same level of servicing as you have now. Some will insist that main dealer service history enhances the future value, but at 6 year old and more, the respective values will not cover your servicing costs. 
Perhaps you would let us know what you decide to do going forward.

Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[Mikie]

Hi Ron...

My advice is be wary... be very wary....

In recent years, Audi have operated a dual servicing regime - 'Fixed' which is annual and every 9,000 or 10,000 miles (depending on which dealer you ask), whichever comes first, and 'Flexible' which Audi states 'is up to 2 years or 18,600 miles'... in reality 18,000 or 19,000 miles, depending which dealer you ask.  

What Audi don't explain, and franchise dealers don't tell you, is that if you opt for 'Flexible' servicing, the oil-change element of the servicing works on a 'condition-based' model....  so, while customers expect to do around 2 years and 18,000 miles on the 'Flexible' regime, you can still find yourself having to have an oil service at the 9,000 miles or 1 year point or anywhere between that and the 2 years and 18,000 point.  As a result, its not uncommon for people on the 'Flexible' regime to end up having two services a year even if they're only driving 9,000 or 10,000 miles p.a!  And it's not unheard of for main dealers to try and quote or charge people for unnecessary oil changes when only an 'Inspection' service is due, and vice versa.  

Edited October 12, 2021 by Mikie

[twodogron]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

The only point I was trying to make in my original post was the fact that I am averaging only 3,000 to 4,000 miles per year.

I have found a way of cancelling (resetting) the dashboard notification of "Service Due in xxxx amount of Days" but cannot delete or reset the "Inspection Due in xxxx amount of Days". I'm sure there is a way of resetting this too.....just haven't found it yet....

I'm not really worried, the car is now 6 years old, flies through MOT's, one due this week, I shall ignore the inbuilt notifications and service the vehicle regularly.... but..... only when I decide, not the computer..

Thanks again,

Ron..

[Stevey Y]

On 10/12/2021 at 5:17 PM, twodogron said:

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

The only point I was trying to make in my original post was the fact that I am averaging only 3,000 to 4,000 miles per year.

I have found a way of cancelling (resetting) the dashboard notification of "Service Due in xxxx amount of Days" but cannot delete or reset the "Inspection Due in xxxx amount of Days". I'm sure there is a way of resetting this too.....just haven't found it yet....

I'm not really worried, the car is now 6 years old, flies through MOT's, one due this week, I shall ignore the inbuilt notifications and service the vehicle regularly.... but..... only when I decide, not the computer..

Thanks again,

Ron..

Hi get VCDS then you can set the inspection due to rows of zeros so it never comes on again, I have done it with my car and the process is applied to all Audi models.

Steve.

[twodogron]

Hi Steve,

Yes, I've been considering an OBD11 device but I'm not too sure which model/type would be the right one bearing in mind I only want to reset a couple of items....

Can I ask which type/model you would recommend ?

Thanks,

Ron.