Originally Posted By: Tribeca
I emailed Redline and Dave recommended 5w-30 (not sure why) and said wait until I have at least 1500 to 2000 miles before switching to RL. I wanted to do a OC at 1000 miles, then again at the required 5000 miles. Now I am more confused than I was before I wrote to them.
On the FSI, Redline 5w40 did better than the 5w30. There is a huge difference in thickness between the two, kv100 of 5w30 is 10.8 while 5w40 is 15.1 I think the increased thickness helps with the fuel dilution these cars produce.
The oil consumption doubled and iron numbers were higher when I ran 5w30 on one oil change compared to the 5w40. I noticed no difference in turbo spool up or mpg between the two.
Again that is speaking for the FSI which is not exactly the same as the TSI, but if it were my car I would run the redline 5w40. I am constantly on the lookout for something better but for now redline 5w40 is the best performer I have seen in the fsi.
Waiting until 2k over 1k is not going to hurt anything IMO and may be beneficial. Another strategy that some employ would be to change to GC or similar at 1k and change it again soon thereafter at 2k or 3k or whatever you want and then switch to an ultra low wear oil such as redline or biosyn. This is often done to remove contaminants form break in. Really both strategies may work well.
Two things I can offer is that on my fsi most of the contaminants were already present at 1100 miles when I did my first UOA. The UOA below shows the change from 1100 miles to 5000 miles (oil was not changed at 1100 miles, look at the two columns on the far right). Also the chart below shows the trend for wear on the 2.0 FSI. Where the curve flattens out may indicate when much of the "break in" wear is complete, but it is limited data. x axis is miles on vehicle and y axis is ppm Fe/1000 miles.
