If I Never Serviced My Audi

The Real Cost of Avoiding that Audi Service Near Me

Today, that ugly service light made its presence known, and I knew it was time to book an Audi service near me. We all know that our cars need at least an annual service, but as always, the time, effort, and costs associated with the task can be off-putting.

So I wondered: what if I never serviced my Audi? Of course, I’d have a tough job on my hands trying to sell it four or five years down the line, but I’m not talking about that. I want to know – mechanically, technically – what would happen to my car if I just let it run on fuel and a prayer? Well, I dug deeper into it, and what I found is that plenty can happen.

In the case of a new Audi, by the time you got to 30 000 miles, you’d already have missed two standard services and one major service, according to the German carmaker’s recommended maintenance schedule. At this mileage, the newness of your car’s components will likely compensate for the dirty fluids running through its veins, but the higher your mileage and the higher the age of your car, the more serious the repercussions will be.

Let’s jump straight to one of the most serious scenarios, namely, if you never changed your car’s oil. At first, bits of dirt will merely accumulate in the oil, but this won’t cause damage just yet, because the oil filter will do its job and remove the dirt. Eventually, after removing more dirt than it reasonably can, your filter will clog up completely. The dirty, thick and abrasive oil will simply bypass the now useless filter and meekly attempt to continue doing its job of lubricating the components inside your engine. A number of additives in the oil (detergents, rust-fighters, and the like) will also wear out, further hampering the oil’s ability to lubricate, and when this happens, your engine will quickly fail. When you consider that a year’s worth of oil changes will cost about $120 relative to $4000+ to replace your whole engine, it would be silly to ignore this basic maintenance item.

Another servicing job that’s often ignored until a repair is absolutely necessary are your brakes. As these are an essential safety component of your car, any service station will check them routinely. After miles of use without replacement, your pads will of course wear down to the metal. With the rivets exposed, these begin digging into the rotors. If your rotors begin disintegrating and bits of metal start to remove themselves from your braking system, you’re already way past the point of safety! While replacing brake pads or shoes need only cost you around $200, damaged rotors or drums will see you forking out up to $600 and beyond. Besides, brakes minus their pads are a sorry sight, and they sound pretty awful, too.

Another essential maintenance item that you can’t ignore (unless you choose to walk up to your car blindfolded each morning) are your tires. Without spending a minimal amount per year on tire rotation, balancing, and alignment, they’ll wear much faster. Not changing them is asking for trouble – there are precious few stories of tires blowing at speed that have ended happily.

So, throwing your service book out the window is a terrible idea (but we knew this), and while skipping a few services may not see catastrophic results, they will certainly cost you dearly in the long run. On that note, it’s time to book my Audi in for some TLC!