Hey all,
Did the first service on our A3 etron. Great little car with 200+ hp, nearly 270 lb ft of tq with a DSG gearbox while retaining 25 miles of EV range. Car does about 52MPG with each tank.
Funny thing is, VW recommends a 5W40 VW approved 502 oil (high HTHS, mid or full SAPS) in this plug-in hybrid. With the constant start/stop nature of the vehicle and being a fuel efficient purpose built car, it's pretty strange that this would be the recommendation- pretty much anything but a "fuel economy/energy conserving" oil that most other hybrids use.
So I thought outside the box a bit and went with the Motul X-clean FE 5W30 100% synthetic- VW 502 approved etc. Besides going to a 5W30, this product is also on the lower end of the high HTHS (3.5 mPa.s) scale to promote better fuel economy, hence the "FE" in the name. I also had a 2 liter can of the 300V Sprint 0W15 ester based 100% synthetic I use for short race stints. The 300V VOA's I've seen have a ton of moly in it so it should promote better engine efficiency as well (besides cutting the viscosity of the overall oil change).
Car takes about 4 quarts of oil so I went 3 parts 5W30 and 1 part 0W15 to make my own "fuel economy" and cold start friendly concoction. Based on the TDS's available the oil came out to be:
Vis HTHS: 3.1 mPa.s (low HTHS oils have a maximum cSt of 2.9)
Vis @ 40C: 60.5
Vis @ 100C: 10.3
Basically it comes out to somewhere between a 0W30/5W30 albeit on the thin side.
We use the electric engine about 25% of all miles driven so the gas engine rarely sees long distances or full oil temps. Mainly shorter trips and a lot of in town driving/stop and go traffic. I'll be monitoring with UOA on a short interval to start- excited to see if there are any obvious fuel economy gains.
Did the first service on our A3 etron. Great little car with 200+ hp, nearly 270 lb ft of tq with a DSG gearbox while retaining 25 miles of EV range. Car does about 52MPG with each tank.
Funny thing is, VW recommends a 5W40 VW approved 502 oil (high HTHS, mid or full SAPS) in this plug-in hybrid. With the constant start/stop nature of the vehicle and being a fuel efficient purpose built car, it's pretty strange that this would be the recommendation- pretty much anything but a "fuel economy/energy conserving" oil that most other hybrids use.
So I thought outside the box a bit and went with the Motul X-clean FE 5W30 100% synthetic- VW 502 approved etc. Besides going to a 5W30, this product is also on the lower end of the high HTHS (3.5 mPa.s) scale to promote better fuel economy, hence the "FE" in the name. I also had a 2 liter can of the 300V Sprint 0W15 ester based 100% synthetic I use for short race stints. The 300V VOA's I've seen have a ton of moly in it so it should promote better engine efficiency as well (besides cutting the viscosity of the overall oil change).
Car takes about 4 quarts of oil so I went 3 parts 5W30 and 1 part 0W15 to make my own "fuel economy" and cold start friendly concoction. Based on the TDS's available the oil came out to be:
Vis HTHS: 3.1 mPa.s (low HTHS oils have a maximum cSt of 2.9)
Vis @ 40C: 60.5
Vis @ 100C: 10.3
Basically it comes out to somewhere between a 0W30/5W30 albeit on the thin side.
We use the electric engine about 25% of all miles driven so the gas engine rarely sees long distances or full oil temps. Mainly shorter trips and a lot of in town driving/stop and go traffic. I'll be monitoring with UOA on a short interval to start- excited to see if there are any obvious fuel economy gains.
Last edited: