Are 1.8T's JUNK????

[Jon]

First of all, I have a 2001 1.8t Audi A4.  I have had it since it was
new and at the 5k service change I had Audi replace the original oil
with Mobil1.  I have had no other oil in the engine since then. 
Around 8000 miles I had a GIAC chip installed.   every 3000-4000 miles
after that original change the engine has had mobil1 and a new filter.
 I have 60k miles on the odometer now.

I recently peered inside the engine to see how my "sludge" was.  Well
guess what?  I have absolutely ZERO sludge in my engine.

The problem with the sludge issue isn't the engine, and its not
necessarily the oil... its the perception that VW has created by
saying you can go 10k miles w/o an oil change.   (This was the regular
scheduled maintenance on my car, I however did the changes earlier). 
So you have conventional oil in the car and people going too long
between changes.

I think the 1.8t is an excellent engine, you just need to put a little
more money into good oil and change the oil OFTEN!

> For whatever reason, oil consumption is definitely higher using even
> 10W30 Mobil 1 versus Castrol Syntec 10W30. Both oils come out pretty
> clean even after 5k miles in the Beetle.

The last time I changed my oil I drained almost exactly a gallon of
oil out of my oil pan.  That doesn't account for the small amount of
oil that spilled and remained in the filter when I took it off.   But
that means that my engine used no more than 0.3 quarts of oil over
about 3500 miles.

I think thats pretty good.