[BiturboS4] RE: Breaking in with Dino

[Edwards, Dave]

Matt,

Can you remember any more detail? What seals, and what are they made of such
that they can 'absorb' and 'swell'?

As I think most readers know by now, this is only happening in the US. All
Euro S4s came with fully synth from the factory. If properly serviced, Euro
S4s only ever have fully synthy in them.

Before I bought my S4, I read a lot on this list and on Audiworld, since
there wasn't an English language S4 forum in Europe. I read that it was
typical for S4s to burn (a lot of) oil for the first few 1000 miles of their
life.

Mine didn't, and I don't know of any other S4 or RS4 owner in the UK whose
car burnt a lot of oil either.

I suppose it's too late for me now as my car's just coming up to 20,000
miles, but I'm very interested to know if this tale about using non-synth
oil during break-in has any technical merit, or if it's just a case of US
dealers saving money by using cheap oil.

Cheers,
Dave

--__--__--

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 09:36:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matt twentyV <matt_20v at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [BiturboS4] engine oils
To: biturbos4 at audifans.com

> One final thing, though...I've heard many people say
> on various newsgroups
> that dino oil is better for a brand new engine (i.e.
> don't use synthetics
> until after 10k miles or something like that). I
> can't understand why this
> would be true.  Anyone have an idea?

What I've heard (read it on the internet so it must
be true ;-) is that non-synth is absorbed by the seals
and causes them to swell and seat properly.
Anecdotal evidence to support this- switching to
synth on a high mileage engine can and does lead to
increased leakage.

=====
Matt Rooke
'91cq- modified, still slow
'00S4- stock, very fast