Service Interval - oil, oil filter, cam belt?

[richandhazel]

I've now clocked up 3000 miles since buying and puting my Polo GT on the road. I did an oil and filter change straight away but as I have no service history or manual I wondered if someone could confirm if I'm right with the following service intervals..........I'm guessing it will be much the same as a Golf GTI, so:-

Oil change every 5000
Oil and filter every 10000
Cambelt every 60000

That sound about right or do you reckon, with these better semisynthetic oils around now, you could get away with oil and filter every 10000?
What does it actually say in the service manual?

Cheers.

[Tahrey1043]

you've pretty much hit it on the head there...

technically you can get away with 10k oil changes, but seeing the state of some of the internals after it's lived most of it's life on that schedule (i.e. former owner probably only had anything happen to it on an annual garage service), even after i've done full oil and filter changes every 6-8000 miles and topped it up regularly, i'd stick to the 5000 mile one.

and the cambelt i had changed at 66k miles still seemed in good nick, however its probably best to do it every 45 or 50k... job isnt too expensive, and having just dealt with swapping it myself, id say even at £100 or more its bloody good value to save the hassle (even if the part IS all of £5.00 plus tax)
probably only takes an hour to do if you know what you're about, but of course, I didn't, and its a total pain in the t*ts.

PS keep an eye on the air filter too, i had one get clogged in less than 4000 miles last year... i think it was summer smog that did for it.. diesel particulates, pollen and sand.

[richandhazel]

Thats brilliant. Thanks for your help.