Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
We feel that the 7K is warranted because of the age of the engine.
A 2002 TDI is only 11 years old. It's done, what, 175k miles I'm guessing? (EDIT: just reread your first post where you mentioned 170k miles...)
I know people that have TDIs with 400k+ miles on them as daily drivers and not one of them has changed the oil at any less than 10k miles for the entire life of the car. Many of them well beyond that number. No bypass or additional filtration, stock OE filters (Mann, Hengst or Knecht); No fancy oils either, typically the ones I listed above.
It's your car and y'all are free to do what you will, but unless you have a major engine issue, you're throwing away oil that has at least 50% more life in it.
The typical OCI for the same engine in Europe is 31k miles... 10k miles is the severe service interval!
This is one sensible way to save money on oil changes - do less of them! Run this oil out to 10k miles then send in a sample for analysis. Unless there's an underlying issue in the engine, dollars to doughnuts, the oil will be suitable for continued use.