5000km away from an oil change, oil is very dark and about 1/2 litre low?

Hi there,
I'm following the 16k km or 10k km oil change interval. And i checked my oil this past weekend at at 5000km/3000mi away from my next oil change the oil is very dark/black and it's about half way between the max and min markings...is this normal.

I assume the oil is not very low, as it's still in the range, but i'm wondering if the colour is normal? Car run very well. 96k km on it. Not drive very hard.

Perfectly normal. If you look at your oil after an oil change and a very short drive, it will already be dark.

Bill

ok - i thought so, I wasn't sure if it was because of the longer oil change intervals (which i love - offsets the DSG service costs)

Normal, completely normal. The more it idles the more oil it will use. The oil will be as black as it can be within minutes of an oil change. Normal for diesels.

Drive it harder. Increase your normal shift rpm by 500 for a day, then another 500 the next, then another, until you are shifting at 4000-4500 rpm. After that, at least one day a week, push it up to 4,000 to 4,500 rpm several times. The other days you can shift lower - but it should see at least 3,500 rpm once a day. This will help keep your turbo controls free and working well.

Oh I def. 'give'r' at least once every few days. It's just fun trying to get good milage out of the cars so i tend to take it easy - especially with the snow. But I make sure my turbo get a weekly work out for sure