"Change oil now!" message

This came up in less than 10000 miles, the usual interval for my car. I read the manual and did not see anything about the warning making any difference to being able to start the car if the oil is not changed. During this oil change interval, I did make one long trip at highway speeds. Outside air temp was warm, by Alaska standards, but by no means extreme. A bit of dust from road construction here and there.

My question is about the algorithm to determine when to change oil. Turbo usage? Oil temp and time? Engine or vehicle speed? Engine loading percent over the long haul? Other?

If I do not get to having the oil changed within a somewhat short time, what risk do I take? Can the information be stored and later downloaded to say when the message appeared and when the maintenance was done?

I'm now at about 18700 miles. I can probably get it changed in the next 500 to 1000 miles. Is that reasonable? Yeah, I've been getting the countdown for about 500 miles or so.

TIA

372 days or 10,000 miles. You can view this information in the Instrument cluster via scan tool, and some cars let you view it in the cluster directly via the buttons.

My guess is, you bought your car "new" September of last year, but its last service reset was done July of last year, hence the warning. You are up by time, not mileage (which is rare for TDIs).

If you are pretty confident you'll from now on do 10k miles inside of a year, I'd probably just run it to 20k and do the 20k service (which is more than just an oil change, obviously), and reset it then and motor on.

I am dealing with this weekly now with these new-but-never-sold 2015s, as well as some of the fixed 2009-2014 cars.

Thanks. I've done the 10K service, I think in November. I bought the car new in Orlando and drove it back to Anchorage. The first 6500 miles happened in less than two weeks. A July anniversary date, though, probably is in the mix. The message was in miles instead of in days. Does that bear any indication of which parameter is used for the warning?

So was both the oil change AND inspections reset at 10k miles? I forget which has which (exactly what models, years, etc.) but I generally just reset everything when I service them.

You can look in VCDS and see all the parameters. I *think* on yours you can scroll through the cluster menus and find it, too. The owner's manual should have more information.

I am guessing they didn't change the time entry for the date it was done

You can reset this, there's a process using the trip meter button. A quick google search will find it for you.

Thanks. It's not covered in the manual, and I don't have VCDS. I recall that I can reset using the trip mileage reset, but it zeroes back out at that point, so the reminder will be 10000 miles after that point. I'll see what the google god shows me.

Seriously, VCDS (or something similar) is almost a requirement if you want to have ANY hand in taking care of a modern VAG product.

I agree. Thanks. I'm hoping for an iOS version of VCDS. It seems limited to Android. I may have to bite the bullet and go with a different system after all these years.

One side note, we did have one car do this because oil level. I think it is because BioDiesel can cause oil level to rise, so overfilled may also trigger "Oil Change Now" to be displayed. Of course we can't find any documentation to support it. Just a theory for now.

Jason

Thanks. I thought of that, but I checked the oil level and it's fine. Also, I had the countdown warning about mileage, so there is that. I think it goes back to when the 2015 was put into service and how that date corresponds to reality. I'm really happy with the car. It seems so much better than my '09 JSW TDI. Just the higher gear ratio alone makes for better fuel usage.