Re: Oil changes on 97 Jetta GLX

[warren.gleich@marcam.com (Warren Gleich)]

  >So whats the deal with "regular dino juice until at least 15k"?  Who 
     >told you that?  I just had my first oil change and went with the 
     >Castrol SLX, the dealer didn't mention anything about not using synth 
     >for the first few go-rounds!!  Is there a potential problem? Am I 
     >ruining my engine? 

Robert,

There was a very well respected tuner on the Passat list until some boneheads
pissed him off and he left.  I believe he has a company that actually builds 
race 
engines, not just nice little mods like p-flows.  He stated the following on 
the list 
numerous time.  Absolutely run the stock oil to the first VW recommended oil 
change.  This helps the rings set correctly.  Don't change it prior to the 
recommended
mark just add oil.  The oil that comes from the factory is regular oil, not 
some break
in oil.  

I recall the talk at that time was, you can change to synthetic after the 
first oil change,
but you were not going to hurt it by running dino juice for the duration of 
the VW free
factory service.  The dealer charges an arm and a leg for synthetic on an oil 
change.
I chose to follow that logic and my rings have set correctly on my 94
passat with ~150k miles.  I don't lose a drop of oil between oil changes 
(every 3000 miles).

So bottom line is you are not hurting your engine.  ymmv ...

Warren