Synth Oil/Break-In

["Al Powell" <APOWELL@agcom.tamu.edu>]

> From: Steve Verona <vrona@infinet.com>

> His advice was to switch back to non-synthetic oil.  He says that the 
> synthetics do not work properly and that Audi discourages their use.  Is 
> there any truth to this?  ANybody heard the same thing?

Steve - this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.  Many people 
are still ignorant of the properties of synthetics.  Their position 
is "reg'lar oil allus wurked fine fo'me".  They're right - regular 
oil now is really good stuff.  Synthetic is BETTER.  Your problems 
lie elsewhere than the type of oil you're running.  In a  performance 
application, you are MUCH better served with synthetic.

Audi does NOT discourage use of synthetics.  They REQUIRE synthetic 
gear oil in their transaxles!  They're been recalling the 5K series 
for years to put synthetic gear oil in them!

> > From: Peter Henriksen <peterhe@microsoft.com>
> > Subject: RE: Breaking in newly Purchased S-6
> > 
> > Be careful of when you change the various fluids the first time. Some
> > manufacturers have "break-in" fluids that have to stay in for a certain
> > amount of time and no more. Check with your friendly (should be after
> > you buying an S6 :-) local Audi dealership.
> 
> What I did on our S6 was to drive it in the manner I wanted the car
> to be used in. In other words, sometimes light on the gas, sometimes
> WFO. Didn't spend alot of time at either extreme. Always made sure
> that I didn't shut the car off immediately after a WFO session.

I agree with Peter: during break-in, drive the car the way you're going 
to drive it, avoiding the extremes of prolonged high RPM (5K+) and 
avoid lugging it.  Don't use synthetics during break-in, as they 
prevent rings from seating; change over to them about 5K miles.

Al Powell                           Voice:  409/845-2807
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