Audi 'Longlife' Service (Non-S2)

[Dan]

Our A6 is on the Audi 'longlife', as opposed to fixed, service schedule.

Blurb in the manual says:

With the Audi LonglIfe service conept, Audi has developed a new technology to take account of your personal driving style and the individual conditions in which the vehicle is used. This can be imporant because, for example, frequent short trips and long journeys affect the vehicle in different ways. The service intervals are therefore flexible.

...blah blah blah. Okay, but marketing speak aside, how does it actually decide when to stick the "take me to the stealer" light on?

I've read on several threads online it's "depending on how the car is used" but does anyone actually know how the calculation works?

It's come on after sub-10k of gentle motorway miles... which seems surprisingly soon.

[Rusty]

Witchcraft

[Mikes2]

Are you sure they definitely set it up for longlife in the car ?

With mostly gentle motorway use, you should get close to the 19000 mile mark.

[Dan]

Witchcraft

Definitely this.

Are you sure they definitely set it up for longlife in the car ?

With mostly gentle motorway use, you should get close to the 19000 mile mark.

Was last time I checked... could it have reset itself? e.g. if it lost battery power for some reason? or would it still be saved?

I've done a tiny bit of towing and a 5 minute play on the Autobahn, but really nothing in the scheme of things. Unless it's picked up on that and instantly decided I'm a boy racer?

[Ian Simmonds]

When we had our old A4 B6 I gave up with the long life services, because the mileage and times between services just seemed huge... It didn't seem 'right'... Witchcraft, as you say.

[Mikes2]

I had my S8 on longlife. Even with several autobahn stints of 160+, I still got over 18k miles for the service window. It's short town journeys which shorten the range.

I'm not a fan of longlife. It used to go through 2 litres of oil every 6k miles.

My current car is on fixed 10k service intervals.

[caterpillar]

i will never use the "longlife" oil or so... if you have opend the engine when using the "witchcraftoil" you have been chocked... you cant se the different by a camshaft and walvespings... or whatever; its like the asfaltguy have forgotten to clean the tools....

[Dan]

Yeah, I read elsewhere that the oil comes out filthy on LongLife.

Is that due to the usually longer interval, or something about the oil itself?

[Error404]

Longlife servicing is the devil, get off it ASAP. Up to 20k service interval is a long time for an HGV let alone a performance car.

EDIT: Yesthe oil is like sludge when it comes out

Its only Audi trying to "keep up with the Jones" and copy BMW trying to appeal to fleet buyers.
AFAIK it is set in mileage, if you press the spanner button on the dash it will tell you how long to the next service in miles or km.

You can change the service light settings in VAGcom so maybe someon has quite rightly set it back to a more reasonable 8-10k