What service status values in the MFD after a service?

Speed-FReek · Jan 12, 2015

When a service has been carried out, what service status values should be present in the MFD?

On my way home from the service today I flicked the MFD to the service status display to find that it just contained dashes. Thinking it would probably kick back into action after it had been driven a bit and then start to display some real values I drove the 25 mile journey home only to find that nothing had changed and it still just showed dashes. Does this mean the dealer failed to do a full/proper reset of the service status?

I've now done a manual service reset in the MFD but I'm not sure if I have now messed something up by doing that because it appears to have reset to a 12-month schedule based on the values now showing (just over 365 days or just under 10k til the next service is due).

Before this service, my car was on a long life service schedule and when I asked the service advisor if it was still set to that he seemed a bit clueless and just said that it probably was but to just go by what it said on the MFD (which I didn't know at the time was blank!). The manually reset service schedule figures don't look right to me for a long life service schedule.

Can someone please clarify if the dashes were actually fine and if all I needed to do was to be a bit more patient before some real values appeared. By doing a manual reset have I now screwed it up?

m4rtin · Jan 12, 2015

Although I'm not 100% sure I think that it takes a while (few days) for the car to calculate the next service when you're on long life.

Speed-FReek · Jan 12, 2015

So does that mean I've now screwed it up and caused it to be put onto a fixed 12-month service schedule by being impatient and doing a manual reset?

LeonCR · Jan 12, 2015

right the long life service can only be reset with the dealer computer, it takes up to 500 miles to give you when the next service is due

When you reset the service indicator via the mfd it reverts to 1 year/10k

Speed-FReek · Jan 12, 2015

LeonCR said:
right the long life service can only be reset with the dealer computer, it takes up to 500 miles to give you when the next service is due

When you reset the service indicator via the mfd it reverts to 1 year/10k

B****s. Looks like a call to the dealer and a 45 mile round trip back to them to get it put back to long life service settings.

Does anyone know if it can be done with VCDS?

Speed-FReek · Jan 13, 2015

Ross-Tech are now helping me with this and they seem to believe that it is going to be possible for me to get the service reminder back to the flexible long life schedule using VCDS. There is some information on one of their Wiki pages about it but it looks like it will take some further analysis of my Control Module Map data first to work out what the actual procedure will be. I'll post back with an update later in the week once I know more.

m4rtin · Jan 13, 2015

Good luck!

Speed-FReek · Jan 13, 2015

Thanks. I'm now quietly confident that this will get sorted via VCDS without needing a return trip to the dealer.

I've been through my owners handbook and can find nothing about the service status in the MFD and what gets displayed or why so I'm not sure how I was supposed to know there wasn't a problem with it and to just leave it alone.

The SEAT service staff really should be advising customers of these sorts of things when they collect their cars and they should definitely know what type of service schedule one of their customers cars has been put on. At the very least it should be documented on the invoice / service report but any comments listed all just seem pretty vague.

I've subsequently found some information on the Ross-Tech website of all places stating that you could see "Service in --- mi or --- days," dashes on the service status display for ~300 miles or on some diesels up to ~1000 miles after a service reset for flexible long life schedules. So that confirms what LeonCR mentioned above. At least I'll know for next time.

Speed-FReek · Jan 18, 2015

Now all sorted and switched back to the original flexible long life service schedule with the help of VCDS

The dashes / hyphen status of "Service in --- mi or --- days." should start showing some real values after the car has done ~300 miles or so which is the time it apparently takes the TOG sensor to do its initial analysis of the oil quality.

I'll get a step-by-step VCDS guide knocked up and will append it to this thread so others know what to do if they also inadvertently reset their service schedule to a fixed schedule via the MFD and want to switch it back to a flexible long life service schedule again.

Speed-FReek · Jan 18, 2015

Below is a guide on how to use VCDS to switch a car to be on a flexible long life service schedule.

IMPORTANT: The following two conditions must both be TRUE before putting a car onto a flexible long life service schedule:-

The engine must be filled with high quality "long life" fully synthetic oil.
The engine must have a TOG sensor present. This is what constantly measures the oil quality to determine when a service is actually required for cars that are on a flexible long life service schedule. You can find out if your engine has a TOG sensor by checking the sticker under the carpet in the boot and/or the sticker in the handbook which shows all the option "PR-Codes" that the car was fitted with from the factory. You are looking for a PR-Code of QG1 or QG2 which denotes that the engine has a TOG sensor installed. Information on the TOG sensor and service interval PR-Codes can be found HERE.

Step-by-step instructions:-

Connect a Ross-Tech VCDS cable between your computer and the OBD2 port on your car and run the VCDS software.
Click on the "Select" button under the "Select Control Module" section...
Click on the "17-Instruments" button...
Click on the "Adaptation - 10" button...
Select "(6)-ESI: Coding of Service Interval Extension (SIE)-Oil quality" from the "Channel" dropdown box...
Set the "New Value" to "good oil quality" using the dropdown box...
Click on the "Do It!" button...
Confirm that you want to commit the change by clicking on the "Yes" button...
Acknowledge the committed change by clicking on the "OK" button...
Close VCDS.

The change takes effect immediately without any need to cycle the ignition. If you go to the service interval reminder display screen in the MFD you will now see a dashes / hyphen status that shows "Service in --- mi or --- days.". It will take ~300 miles (~500 km) of driving before actual values start to appear on the service interval display screen which is the time it takes the TOG sensor to do its initial analysis of the oil.

To change from a flexible long life service schedule to a fixed service schedule, either just use the service reset option in the MFD, or follow the steps above but select a "New Value" of "poor oil quality" in step (6) above.

Hopefully this might be of some help anyone who ends up in the same situation as I did (see post #1 of this thread).

Speed-FReek · Mar 1, 2015

This issue is now fully concluded.

Today the service status in my MFD started displaying real longlife service schedule figures again which is roughly ~350 miles since the dealer did the original service reset. So I'm now happy that the longlife service reset fix I did with VCDS has proved to have worked successfully

Ian Warren · Dec 17, 2024

Speed-FReek said:
Below is a guide on how to use VCDS to switch a car to be on a flexible long life service schedule.

IMPORTANT: The following two conditions must both be TRUE before putting a car onto a flexible long life service schedule:-

The engine must be filled with high quality "long life" fully synthetic oil.

The engine must have a TOG sensor present. This is what constantly measures the oil quality to determine when a service is actually required for cars that are on a flexible long life service schedule. You can find out if your engine has a TOG sensor by checking the sticker under the carpet in the boot and/or the sticker in the handbook which shows all the option "PR-Codes" that the car was fitted with from the factory. You are looking for a PR-Code of QG1 or QG2 which denotes that the engine has a TOG sensor installed. Information on the TOG sensor and service interval PR-Codes can be found HERE.

Step-by-step instructions:-

Connect a Ross-Tech VCDS cable between your computer and the OBD2 port on your car and run the VCDS software.

Click on the "Select" button under the "Select Control Module" section...

Click on the "17-Instruments" button...

Click on the "Adaptation - 10" button...

Select "(6)-ESI: Coding of Service Interval Extension (SIE)-Oil quality" from the "Channel" dropdown box...

Set the "New Value" to "good oil quality" using the dropdown box...

Click on the "Do It!" button...

Confirm that you want to commit the change by clicking on the "Yes" button...

Acknowledge the committed change by clicking on the "OK" button...

Close VCDS.

The change takes effect immediately without any need to cycle the ignition. If you go to the service interval reminder display screen in the MFD you will now see a dashes / hyphen status that shows "Service in --- mi or --- days.". It will take ~300 miles (~500 km) of driving before actual values start to appear on the service interval display screen which is the time it takes the TOG sensor to do its initial analysis of the oil.

To change from a flexible long life service schedule to a fixed service schedule, either just use the service reset option in the MFD, or follow the steps above but select a "New Value" of "poor oil quality" in step (6) above.

Hopefully this might be of some help anyone who ends up in the same situation as I did (see post #1 of this thread).

You absolute Legend!

Thanks very much for posting this!

Got lied to by Skoda some years ago when I enquired about Variable servicing which I had on my previous Skoda Superb, only disovered the other day looking up something in the manual for my car the build label has a code to indicate if fixed or variable servicing is available and low and behold my superb Mk 3 1.4 TSI can do Extended Service Intervals (ESI) (Code QI6 on this car) so as a VCDS user who has previously been through all the SRI menu's wondered what I was missing and its the Oil Quality setting, lol.

Will be doing an oil and filter change this weekend and will be getting a VW 508 00 spec oil (Castrol 0W20 LL IV) and doing the oil quality change to swiitch it over.

Thanks very much indeed for your post.

Ian.

Speed-FReek · Dec 18, 2024

Ian Warren said:
You absolute Legend!

Thanks very much for posting this!

Got lied to by Skoda some years ago when I enquired about Variable servicing which I had on my previous Skoda Superb, only disovered the other day looking up something in the manual for my car the build label has a code to indicate if fixed or variable servicing is available and low and behold my superb Mk 3 1.4 TSI can do Extended Service Intervals (ESI) (Code QI6 on this car) so as a VCDS user who has previously been through all the SRI menu's wondered what I was missing and its the Oil Quality setting, lol.

Will be doing an oil and filter change this weekend and will be getting a VW 508 00 spec oil (Castrol 0W20 LL IV) and doing the oil quality change to swiitch it over.

Thanks very much indeed for your post.

Ian.

Hi Ian,

No problem

I noticed that the images were missing which is because they were originally hosted on TinyPic. That image hosting site was shut down back in 2019, so I have now re-hosted the original images on Imgur and have edited the posts in this thread so they are visible again which should make things easier for anyone else who is looking for the same info.

After all of this, about a year later I ended up switching back to a fixed 12 month / 365 day service schedule because I thought that changing the oil every 12 months was probably a safer option than to let the same oil remain in the car for up to ~18,400 miles / ~698 days based on dynamic TOG sensor analysis.

I still have this same car and am still using it as my daily driver. It's now been under my ownership for 11.5 years, is up to 52,524 miles on the clock, and is still going strong without any major issues so far (knock on wood)

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What service status values in the MFD after a service?

Speed-FReek

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m4rtin

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