New member with break-in oil question

Hey Everyone, my name is Danny and am happy to have found a awesome TDI community like this one and look forward to learning from all of you and contributing where I can myself

I just picked up a 2015 Passat TDI directly from VW corporate (I have a dealer license) and I'm going to be keeping this one for myself. The vehicle only has 14 miles on it as it was one that didn't get sold before diesel gate broke.

MY QUESTION IS- would you guys change the oil before driving it?

I have read that the VW uses special break-in oil and I shouldn't touch it for the first 10K, BUT it has been sitting for 2+ years now. I'm just not sure I should leave it. But then again I am not a big truster of oils anyway as I would change it every 5K on my last TDI I owned and on my Bluetec Mercedes I have now.

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

I would just motor on with the oil. Is oil up to level? 14 miles is nothing. On my last TDI, a 2005 Passat TDI, I used VW's oil change intervals printed in the manual to the letter (10,000 miles) and I had 208k on a car before a deer totaled it. During that life, the car never used more than a 3/4 of oil between 10k oil changes. I bought that car with 30 miles on the clock. Back then VW had a 5k initial oil change and went to 10k changes after that. Just make sure to use the right oil.

Strange situation. VAG says 10k miles, 16k km, or 372 days. Obviously in this case the 372 days have gone by. However, I think the reason for the time spec is simply to catch those who do a lot of shorter trips in a year's time, and do not rack up the miles. Which is rare, but not unheard of, on a TDI.

In this case, though, the car has not had ANY short trips.... it hasn't had any trips AT ALL, really. So, if the oil level is ok, I'd probably just run it out to 10k miles assuming you will be doing so pretty quickly.

vw was supposed to have put new oil in it as part of the prep.

...and OP, based on dozens of used oil analyses, and guru opinion on this site, the 10k OCI is perfectly fine. Save your time and money.

New generation oil is synthetic vs old style oil that would go bad over time. Run it to the first 10k, that oil is used to break the engine rings in properly. You won't do yourself any favors by changing it early.

Find out if they performed the emissions fix and vehicle prep as a dealer would. If so that included a new oil and filter, brake fluid flush, and battery, brakes, and wipers if needed. Then you'll know the oil is fresh. However, if they didn't perform that service I'd be inclined to drive the car 10K before changing the oil.

I have read that the VW uses special break-in oil and I shouldn't touch it for the first 10K...

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I had read the same thing and posted this question (I think in the Mk7 forum) and the consensus was that special break in oil is no longer a thing.

Thanks for all the advice!

Leicaman= So I haven't got the car in my possession yet. It's coming from Northern California. But I would assume the oil is at the proper level.

oilhammer= I'm not sure how quickly I will get it to 10K probably around 6-8 months if I had to guess.

SoTxBill & IndigoBlueWagon= That's what I hear but I bought this directly from VW through the wholesale network, I have a feeling they didn't do the prep on that side and maybe just required the franchise stores to do that before selling them.

tdiatlast & showdown 42= I am still doing my research into that. at the moment I'm still skeptical and figure since it doesn't cost much (or take long) to change I see it as cheap insurance...but I may sway to the long interval side in due time.

The Tortoise= Well if that is the case then I'd change it upon arrival for sure. But how can we be sure that is true? Any evidence that can help?

Arelimotors1 said:

tdiatlast & showdown 42= I am still doing my research into that. at the moment I'm still skeptical and figure since it doesn't cost much (or take long) to change I see it as cheap insurance...but I may sway to the long interval side in due time.

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This forum is your best source for your "research".

think of it this way...one early oil change is not going to destroy your VW. I would be inclined to change the oil to the correct spec as who knows what the dealer actually poured into the car. Let's not start bashing dealers in this thread, but we all know there are some dealers that don't care what oil goes into their VW's .

Put a fresh fill of the correct oil and motor on with confidence.

I'd change at 2-3K just to flush possible build contaminates and go with a 10K change interval after that.

As you can see, opinions vary.