Originally Posted By: Volvohead
Originally Posted By: 08sienna
Thank you for the kind offer Volvohead though northern New England to SE Pa travel might not be easily justified..
That's why we have UPS, FedEx and USPS.
Originally Posted By: 08sienna
BTW can you please elaborate your "recommended OCI with FF prevents consumption issues" theory? My intuition was, longer FF = more initial wear = more consumption in the long run..
If you dig though the archives here, you may find some chatter about it. But if you parse deep through the various VW enthusiast fora, where owners are quick to discuss and complain about consumption and other issues, there is some loose correlation between folks who do early FF changes (some as early as 1,000 miles, and especially with full-synthetics) and consumption. We're not talking heavy usage here, but it's more than zero. It's also a little more with the diesels than the gassers. I know that flies in the face of modern foundry machining standards and the general understanding that an engine is essentially broken in when you take delivery. But the voices of these owners are what they are, and there's enough of a pattern to take notice.
If you accept these owners' reports, the causes can only be speculated upon. Whether it's assembly or other special components added to the factory fill, VW specific ring tension specs (which I only looked at cursorily), or a slight abrasiveness later in the OCI helps them bed-in fully (or some combination) ... no one has really pinned down the exact reasons. But that tendency still surfaces among the early changers. Some early changers have no problems at all. So it's not statistically conclusive. But there's enough of an inference to consider more carefully the practice of dumping the FF prematurely.
Whatever the case, I and a few local VW owners I frequent with (about 5-6 of us) decided to stick with the full interval on the factory fill, a couple of us (me included) on more than one VW. Among us all, we've all experienced zero consumption issues thereafter. These are all post-2000 models.
Certainly leaving the FF in for way past the manufacturer's interval will eventually risk the excessive wear you are fearing. And this isn't one of the tiny crankcase VWs that were grenading 10-15 years ago, before VWoA got much stricter with their oil standards. Since the full manufacturer OCI shouldn't hurt that particular engine at all, you shouldn't be doing any harm whatsoever in doing what VW says, at least this first time.
A little long-winded, but I hope that helps you.
I think these points are valid. I know quite old, but on my '99 Passat it was important to keep the FF in for at least 5,000 mi. which I did. 15 years and 175,000 mi. later all is good. Uses about a quart every 1,000 miles. Valvoline Synpower 5W40 and 5W30 every 8-9,000 miles.