Polo GTI factory fill early dump with filter pictures.

[Omegaspeedy]

Hi guys,

I bought a new South African made Y21 Polo GTI and thought I'd do an early dump of the factory oil. I want to keep the car and care for it so will be carrying out 7500km changes as opposed to the 15000km spec. I bought a service plan so they will do the 15, 30 and 45k (km) and I'll do the ones in between. I wanted to do an early dump and filter change (yes I know it's controversial) to get rid of potential particulates that could alude the filter. The filter did a great job as seen in the pics below and capture a heap of FOD some quite large and made up of different material. There was casting slag (Grey flakes), bright blue particles, bright red particles and shards of aluminium. I'm glad I did this early. The next will be at 7500km. I used the VW502 spec oil as specified in the manual and on the sticker under the bonnet. I used Castrol Edge 5W40. I have to say this was the easiest oil change I have ever done.

[ho8882000]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[monkeyhanger]

I did a running in oil change on my Golf R - there was a surprising amount of particulate matter on the filter - as much as the OP has there. After that, I asked to see oil filters on the 3 official services that followed, they were very clean.

For what's been captured, the oil filter did its job and was nowhere close to being clogged. In hindsight, I wouldn't have bothered with my 1500 mile running in oil change, and 10k miles/15k km is short enough an interval for changing fully synthetic oil and the filter. I wouldn't bother doing a change in between the official change unless I was using mineral based oil.

[Omegaspeedy]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

You're welcome, it's all a learning curve.