The Dreaded 40,000mi. Service Has Arrived for My GTI
May 4, 2006 – 9:00 am by Dan Volkens
Filed under Car Care, Volkswagen GTI
*Big sigh* Yep, my GTI and I finally hit our first big landmark after 2 1/2 years together: 40,000mi. And you know what that means. What’s that? You… you don’t? Oh, well, it’s only that special time when you give your life savings to your dealer.
After coming home and putting my beloved GTI to bed for the evening, I noticed I had finally hit 40k. 40k + 2 to be exact. So the time comes to decide whether I’ll get the scheduled 40k service interval done at my local dealer, or go the DIY route. (See my previous article outlining what’s involved in the 40k for GTIs, and resources for the Do-It-Yourselfer)
To summarize my previous 40k service article, a premier Cincinnati Volkswagen dealership quoted me $451.00 for the entire service. That’s quite a chunk of change for a service interval, but seems to be average for this service. Doing it myself comes out to about half that amount. Do it myself and worry about warranty voidage etc., or suck it up and go to the dealer?
I think this time around I’m going the dealer route. A couple reasons why:
1. My wife and I live in an apartment, so space to do all this work is very limited, not to mention it could ruffle the HOA’s feathers if the work is too involved, or if the car sits for an extended period. Stuff like that.
2. While I trust my abilities with general mechanic work, I would feel more at ease getting it done by the dealer because I don’t currently have every tool I need, and my car is a lease. (ugh)
I’ll let ya know how it goes. Oh, and by the way. I’ll take 40k service donations if anybody is offering. Anybody? Anyone there? *cricket sounds*
The Dreaded 40,000mi. Service Has Arrived for My GTI
May 4, 2006 – 9:00 am by Dan Volkens
$450 to keep a $22,000 car running in top condition isn’t really that much ;)
I just spent $700 on my TDI for a new timing belt and EGR, installed and all. Lucky for me I’ve only got to do that every 80k and that’s the biggest job I’ve got to do :)
True, but the real bummer of the 40k is that they’re simply checking most items on the list. There really isn’t much heavy lifting mechanically, and if there is, you’ll pay extra. It’s all worth doing, but at that’s a fairly steep price for what it is.
In New Orleans, the 40k service is $650, so count your blessings
$595 in Sacramento California.. preparing to eat ramen for the next month
$399 in Arizona if you have them skip rotating the tires. So I was upset, but feel much better about the cost now that I hear from all of you.
$600 at one dealer in San Francisco …How do the dealers arrive at the price, by the way? Per hour spent, labor works out to over 100 bucks. Forget law school, engineering, or medicine. Be a mechanic!!
$380 in Iowa for the entire service, but everything is cheaper in the midwest. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to keep my warranty to 50K. Once its past that, I won’t be doing all of that stuff…..ridiculous if you ask me no matter how much they do or do not do.
You should shop around. The dealer quoted me about $500 for my Golf. I found a local and established business that will do the work for $350.
I’m pricing the 50k service right now on an ‘02 1.8T GTI. Besides inspections, the only work they actually do is an oil change and tire rotation.
Here’s a link I found from my local VW dealer that lists the service intervals and work items by engine type:
http://www.cartervw.com/en_US/
I am definitely inclined to ask for an oil change and its related inspection, a tire rotation, and maybe after checking my last service interval, a change of break fluid. VW recommends every two years on brake fluid. I’ll find out what that costs vs. “50k service.”
Good call Steve. I’ll bet, though, that you’ll be hardpressed to convince them to only do the changes versus the 50k. But yeah, both the 40k and 50k are mostly checks. Let us know how it goes!
590$ for my R32 on the 40k. Didn’t feel like voiding my warranty. I took it to a mom ‘n pop shop to see what’s the price difference. Besides not having the tools to do it it was still 450$. I would say having the piece of mind of a VW dealer doing is well worth the 590$ for my R.
i am hitting the 40k and ive been quoted £500.00 by vw the thing is ive found a friend who is mechanics for the police but vw have told me that i need a special oil in my gearbox that other garages wont do and i risk damaging my car!is this true do gti,s need special oil?
Hi Johanna, Volkswagen requires very specific gear oils for their transmissions. There are two types of gear oils for both the manual and automatic transmissions, and determining which one that is proper to used is based on the engine and transmission’s code.
As always, Make sure that you/your mechanic triplechecks what I have here against what Volkswagen requires for your specific engine/transmission combination before doing any work! I recorded this information from the Volkswagen Bentley Service Manual.
EDIT: Also, this information pertains only to the MkIV generation of Volkswagens, which is from 1999-2005.
Manual Transmissions:
G50 = G 005 000 (1 liter) (75W90)
G51 = G 005 100 A1 (1/2 liter) (75W90)
By engine/trans:
Automatic Transmissions:
The autos are a bit simpler.
Gear oil required for:
- 01M transmission (4-speed): G 052 162 A2
- 09A transmission (5-speed): G 052 990 A2