60k Service - Race Oil + Magnetic Sump Plug

For the first time ever, I've driven one of my cars beyond the service interval. I feel utterly ashamed and have prayed many times to the car Gods for forgiveness.

The car (supposedly) had it's oil and oil filter replaced when I bought it back in March, more on this point later. However, as it's my daily, I hit the 9000 mile service interval pretty quickly, sometime in late October early November I think.

Now it's not that I couldn't be bothered, I did actually order the service kit on time. However, my usual work space was being taken up, rather selfishly I might add, by my Dad's new toy, a Rev 3 Toyota MR2 Turbo (a bloody nice one, not jealous at all).

Cut to early Feb and the car's now more than 1500 miles beyond the service interval. Braving the cold, my Dad and I decided we would try the service at my place, out in the car park...




Driving up the ramps in an auto is a somewhat nerve racking activity, squeaky bum time for sure... Nevertheless, we got the car in position and, after making sure we were happy the car was secure, cracked on with the service.



As the car uses oil, at a rate of roughly 1 litre every 2000-2500 miles, I got in contact with Opie Oils to discuss the best oil for the car. According to the owners manual, an oil consumption of up to 0.5l per 600 miles is typical and shouldn't be considered a problem. I had a weeping sump plug too, which wasn't helping matters.

Tim at Opie Oils recommended I go for a 5W-40 performance oil (Audi's spec is 5W-30). After looking through his suggestions I settled on Fuchs Titan Race Pro S, a fully synthetic, ester based, oil for fast road and competition use nonetheless.


I'm known for being a tight arse trying to get the best deal I can, when buying service bits I'm no different.

I also love a good spreadsheet too, in which I tilled up all the part's I needed from Opie Oils, then saw if they came in any cheaper at carparts4less (same company as eurocarparts, just cheaper and online only).

A quick Google turned up some discount codes for both stores, in the end it worked out best to order the filters from carparts4less and the oil and sump plug from Opie Oils.

Before any discounts it came in at £131.32, after discounts I got that down to £113.17. £18.15 saved, not great but better than nowt.

My shopping list:

• 2x 5L Fuchs Titan Race Pro S 5W-40 Oil
• AP02 Gold Plug Magnetic Sump Plug
• Mann Oil Filter
• Mann Frecious Plus Cabin Filter

I'd also managed to procure a free bottle of TUNAP 974 from a trip to Audi Coventry, the newer version of TUNAP's 973 fuel additive I'd used last year.


You might also notice I haven't ordered an air-filter, in a future post I'll explain why I've already had to replace it.




On with the show, my Dad got to work dropping the under tray and draining the oil whilst I changed the oil filter.


Having not worked on an Audi before, I wasn't sure how much oil would be spilled when I removed the oil filter, so I bunged the whole area with some rags. Turns out none at all, but better to be safe than sorry. You'll need a 36mm spanner or socket to remove the oil filter housing, worth checking you've got one before starting.




Unlike my BMW 330d and 335i, the Audi's oil filter has two rubber seals, one in the part of the housing you remove and a smaller one on the housing left attached to the engine. You need to use some long nose pliers to get the one out of the housing you remove, like so.


The other you can remove by getting your finger nail under it or using a small screw driver, it's located on the outside of the tube on the main oil filter housing.


Whilst I was arsing about with the oil filter, Dad had drained the oil. When planning the service, we hadn't realised, or accounted for, how much of a slope the drive was on. To level the car up we used the car's own jack, rather crudely, positioned on the right hand ramp. It looks a bit dubious but the ramps are a thick C section steel, so were going no where.


Sketchy or not, it worked a treat, getting the car bang on level. We were both shocked how much extra oil was drained as a result. The furthest pan from camera contains the oil drained before levelling and the one nearest was after levelling, easily another litre. The Audi 3.0 TFSI V6T takes 6.6 US quarts of oil, or 6.25 litres, in total we drained just over 6 litres of oil.


With all the manky old oil drained, it was time to refill. First though, we needed to fit the new sump plug. The old one was way over torqued, probably a 'cure' for the seeping, which meant the torx bit got lodged in the bolt head. I've no doubt the plug and washer had been reused at least once during previous services.




I've chosen to upgrade to a Gold Plug magnetic sump plug. I discovered Gold Plug on Opie Oils website and ended up being convinced by their marketing that I needed one. The idea is that the magnet attracts all the metal debris in your oil, stopping it from causing any further damage to your engine's internals.


After discounts, the Gold Plug still cost £16.61, a hell of a lot for one bolt and a washer. Make no mistake though, it looks and feels very high quality. The magnet in the Gold Plug is ridiculously strong too, it had no problem picking up the 36mm socket and ratchet.




Just quickly before I move on, if you haven't got yourself a dipstick, head over to my post on retrofitting one, it's cheap and well worth doing - Dipstick Retrofit for the Audi 3.0 TSFI V6T.





Last up then is the cabin filter. I've long been an advocate of carbon activated filters, but Mann have come to market with a new three layer filter. The third layer filters out allergens, moulds and particulate matter. I figured that as the car is my daily, and I spend up to 2 hours a day in traffic, I could use as much filtering as possible.


Back in October I checked the cabin filter shape, as there seemed to be two different sized parts available on carparts4less. I was amazed at the amount of crap wedged in the filter. Clearly it hadn't been changed in some time.


The filter itself is housed up behind the glove box, you have to remove the NVH (noise vibration and harshness) panel held in with three plastic screws, then slide a plastic retainer out the way and the filter then just pulls out. I was pretty impressed with Mann for including a how-to guide to replacing the filter too, a nice unexpected touch.








At this time of year in the UK, the roads are caked in mud, which means the washer fluid drains faster than your bank balance at Christmas. I've recently switched to using Autoglym's washer fluid, it's cheap enough and mixes up to 8L, it seems to do a cracking job of clearing the screen too.


Finally, all that was left to do was reset the oil change interval. Fortunately, in the Audi it's a very simple job, you don't have to fart about pressing dial stalks a hundred times like in the 335i, it's just a menu option on the 3G MMI.

Nevertheless, I've made a quick video to explain the process.


Driving the car afterwards was like getting into a car that had done 30,000 less miles. Which led me to think, had the garage I bought the car from actually serviced it? I couldn't believe how smooth the engine was, not that it was rough before by any means. It seemed to have a nicer tone too. I wasn't expecting there to be a difference, so I'm pretty sure it isn't just the placebo affect.

Let me know what you guys think in the comments below, too much waffle or not enough? Do you want me to go more into the detail on anything in particular?

Have you used race spec oil before? Are magnetic sump plugs a gimmick or are they worth the money?

Don't forget to subscribe using the Follow by Email widget in the top right.

You can now follow me on Facebook and Instagram @andybuck123 too!