Hi mate, Im currently on LL servicing, but am going to get my car serviced at the 12month point.
Ive found some cheap Comma Longlife 0W-30 oil which meets VW 506 01 506 00 503 00. I take it this is suitable according to the previous posts?
No, no NOOOOOO. Comma oils are cheap shyte crap - and are NOT Volkswagen approved (check VWs own master lists, at erWin.VW - https://erwin.volkswagen.com - for any of the 'non-belivers' of my posts!), dispite what it may say on the bottle. Never, EVER use Comma crap in any modern car. Comma is so crap, they actually had their Caterham OEM approvals withdrawn. Bad sh!t in any car, never mind a GTI !!!!
If so - if I change my service interval display settings manually will it permanently put the car back to T/D servicing?
Yup.
Cheers mate!
One question - how can they advertise meeting VW standards if the oil is cr%p? Surely there must be some form of regulation to ensure standards are met?
It is simply down to the wording on the bottle. If it says something like 'approved by Volkswagen/Audi to VW 506.01 standard', then the oil will have to have been formally submitted to Volkswagen Germany and undergo VWs own in-house stringent tests. But if they use some kind of weasel words, such as 'meets', 'complies with', 'suitable for' - then phrases like those don't actually mean anything - but the one thing absolutely certain about those kinds of phrases - they will NOT have been formally tested by VW. Mobil are particularly guilty of using those kinds of words. Look at a bottle of Mobil 1 0w40, and it will list a whole shed load of VW standards which it claims to 'meet', yet look on VWs own master lists, and you will be lucky if it actually complies with just one! Virtually all the US based oils are like that.
In terms of regulation, in the UK, we are a little weak in this aspect. Official 'advertisements', such as TV, radio, and print (newspapers, magazines, etc) are fairly well regulated. However, we have sod all regulation for internet sites, and we have little protection for cleverly misleading wording on actual packaging.
Which is why I always recommend either using an oil from a reputable top-level oil company from only the UK or Europe - and if there is any doubt, then check on the erWin sites, where the definative information is published.
HTH