Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help me.  I bought a sweet audi a4 with a turbo engine.  The guy i bought it from says he had it serviced as the audi book required, and told me the oil changes were pretty much money, that this engine needs to have special oil.  Synthetic or something like that. He said i could get sludge in my engine. Not exactly sure what that is, but doesnt sound like something i want!  He used to take it to the audi dealer, then when it was out of warranty took it to a shop that does lots of vw and audi cars on route 88 near 51, around there.  Well, the oil was changed when i got it, but i have close to 5000 miles on it and it is due.  Is this true about the oil? I used to get my old chevy cavalier changed with just plain regular oil and it was fine, the rest of the car went bad, lol.

The car drives really nice and is fast for a 4 cylinder engine, not that i like to speed!  lol  and gets good gas mileage.  I also had a question about what gas to use?  can i run regular grade gas all the time?   I have used it a lot, and my friend said just use premium once in a while and thats ok, what do you think?

thanks for helping, will check back here often.

Trixie 

Hi Trixie,

That is a sweet car.  My son just got a 1997 Pearl White Audi A4 with a 1.8 turbo engine, 5 speed transmission.

The previous owner was correct about the synthetic oil.  You must use synthetic in all VW and Audi turbo engines, gas or diesel.  That pretty much goes for Saab turbo and volvo turbo.  The engines get a sludge build up in the oil system of the engine, the motor will not be properly lubricated and will get noisy and pretty much go bad.  Synthetic oil, with proper oil changes, will usually help prevent this.  We just bought a machine that cleans and flushes the cars oil system, and doing this every 20,000 miles, use synthetic oil, yill give many years of good gas mileage and power, along with extended engine life.  The last car that was in with this problem was a 2002 Saab 9.3.  The engine was so bad, the previous owner must have done cheap oil changes, went way over the recommended intervals, and used regular oil.  I use synthetic oil in all my cars, and change at 5000 miles.

On the regular vs premium gas.  I can tell you, turbo engines like premium,  run better and feel faster.  I get better gas mileage out of my saab turbo when i use premium grade.  I use premium all summer, in the crappy weather, i use regular more often. 

Audi's have knock sensors that will notice if the engine starts to ping on regular grade, and the computer will retard ignition timing to prevent this.  It may not be as peppy, but will usually run acceptable.  Hope this helps.  

Maybe drop me a note of who was the last owner, we are on rt88 near 51, most likely he took it to our shop.

Hey, go to this link, click on car tips, and read the car tip called "Is sludge Killing your engine" This will give you an idea of what i wrote

Paul's Motor Car Service