Fixed or flexible service: which suits your Audi or VW?

What is fixed servicing?

A service at a set interval, whatever the car’s indicator says:

• Volkswagen: every 9,300 miles or 12 months for most models.
• Audi: every year or 9,300 miles.

What is flexible (long life) servicing?

A service when the car’s own indicator says it is due:

• Volkswagen: when the service indicator comes on.
• Audi: every two years or up to 18,600 miles. Audi says some engines are fixed only.

Many owners still call this long life servicing. Volkswagen UK and Audi UK now call it flexible.

Which oil does each schedule need?

Oil that meets the VW oil standard listed for the engine. Škoda publishes a clear list of these standards:

• VW 502 00: petrol engines, including direct injection and turbocharged engines, at the standard interval.
• VW 504 00: all petrol engines, reduced ash, with extended intervals possible.
• VW 505 00 and VW 505 01: older diesel standards. VW 505 00 is not for pump-injector engines or engines with a particulate filter.
• VW 507 00: diesel engines, including those with a particulate filter, with extended intervals.
• VW 508 00 and VW 509 00: petrol and diesel engines listed for them only. These are not backward compatible.

Škoda describes VW 504 00 and VW 507 00 as the standards that allow extended intervals, so a car on flexible servicing needs one of these where its handbook lists it.

The binding standard is the one in your handbook. Volkswagen UK tells owners to match the standard in the handbook to the one on the label, and we confirm it for each car before we fill it.

How do I choose between them?

Start with what your car allows:

• Check the engine. Audi UK says some engines are fixed only.
• Check the oil standard listed in the handbook for your engine.
• Tell us how you use the car, including your yearly mileage, and we will set out what each schedule would mean for it.

Send us the registration and mileage and we will confirm which schedules apply and when the next service is due.

What does the service include?

The work due depends on the car’s schedule, its age and its mileage. We confirm it for your vehicle before we start and send you a written price.

We also add the service to the car’s digital service record.

What happened to the paper service book?

Volkswagen UK stopped issuing service books in May 2017. It says its retailers print the service record on request.

What about the gearbox, cambelt and four-wheel-drive oils?

These have their own schedules. See our pages on the DSG and S tronic oil service, the cambelt and water pump and the Haldex, quattro and 4MOTION service.

What happens if you find something else?

A fault code is not a repair. If the service shows up anything beyond the agreed work, we send photographs and a written price, and do nothing extra until you give your written approval.