Mark: Good morning. It's Mark Bossert at Top Local here with Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive, and this is the Pawlik Automotive podcast and video series, and we're talking cars. How are you doing this morning, Bernie?
Bernie: Doing well.
Mark: So, we're talking about a bit of an exotic car today, a 2014 Audi R8 that had a maintenance schedule. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: Yeah, this vehicle just came to us for some routine maintenance service. It had about 24,000 kilometres, and we did an inspection. It needed an oil change and some air filters, and that was kind of all the car needed at the moment, but yeah.
Mark: Basically it had just been aging in a garage. Did you find any issues with it?
Bernie: No. Really, besides the air filters were dirty and obviously hadn't been replaced, yeah, there was not much really wrong with it. As far as mileage, it's pretty low. Not that there aren't things that do start happening to these cars, but as I say time is often as much of a car killer as mileage. Killer's isn't really the right word, but you know, it ages the car and it requires service. But in this case, nothing was needed. It was in good shape.
Mark: What's involved in an oil change on this vehicle?
Bernie: Well, they're a little more time consuming than your average vehicle. It uses a dry sump oil system, and I could explain that in a couple of minutes, but why don't we just get into a couple of pictures right now?
And you can see our R8 there sitting in the shop. The same platform as Lamborghini Gallardo. So you get get a bit of Lambo for the price of an Audi, which is kinda cool.
And what else we got here? We have one more picture, which is my favourite part. You know what's neat about this car is it's got that, if you ever look at these cars, it has that sloped back, I call it a trunk, it's not. It's a mid-engine car, and so you can see the engine on display through a glass cover, which is a really cool design feature.
But once things are removed, I mean, you can see there's two quite dirty air filters here. There's a big box that they're encased in, so they need to be replaced. You know, it's just a beautiful work of engineering, this engine. Really nice looking, very pleasing to look at. What can I say?
I was saying it has a dry sump oil system, and so that involves a little more work in terms of changing the oil. There's a number of oil drain plugs that need to be removed, not just one like a standard oil pan would have, but there are several that need to be removed, plus the filters kind of buried. That's kind of it. So it takes a little more time to change the oil, and of course the air filters are hidden away in a big box, so more time, but they don't need to be serviced too often.
Mark: So with a dry sump system, how does that work?
Bernie: So dry sump is basically, well like I guess as opposed to a wet sump is like a standard oil pan in a car. A standard car will have an oil pan where all the oil drains in this catch pan in the bottom of the engine, which will hold anywhere from four to maybe eight litres of oil depending on the engine, and a dry sump doesn't hold that oil in the bottom. It basically has a pump that sucks that oil, so the pan is essentially flat. The oil's sucked and it's stored in a separate tank in a different location, and the advantage to that is that you can pump the oil in and it doesn't ... It can be ... Well I guess, when you're driving really fast and you're going around the corner, the oil sloshes around and so there's a possibility that you could actually starve the engine for oil, so in some of your racing applications, all those kind of engines have dry sumps.
In the case of this Audi though, another reason it needs a dry sump is because the pan of course will stick down a lot, and this is a very low riding car, so to keep the centre of gravity low without having the oil pan there, you can actually mount the engine lower and put all the heavy parts, the weight down low where you want it for better handling. So, that's another reason for it as well.
I think I explained that. Is there anything else I missed about dry sump? I think that kind of explains it all.
Mark: That's pretty good. So, what's the recommended service interval on this car?
Bernie: Well, the first oil service, it's basically an annual service. So every 12 months the vehicles should be serviced, oil changed, and the vehicle inspection done. As far as mileage, every 10,000 miles or 15,000 kilometres is kind of the recommended, except for the first service is 8,000 miles, but then after that 15 ... Sorry, 8,000 kilometres, then after that it's 15,000 k's after that, or 12 months, whichever comes first.
Now if you only driven a thousand kilometres, I would assert you could probably go a couple of years between oil changes because it's not going to deteriorate or get contaminated that quickly. It's not necessarily a good thing to change oil too often either.
Mark: No, you're just wasting resources.
Bernie: Wasting resources, but there's also ... I'm not an expert on oil, but what I've read is that there are certain additives to oil that can actually poison catalytic converters. You change it too often, it gets phosphorus or something in in the oil. I could well be wrong about that, but if you were to change your oil too often it can actually poison your catalytic converter because this item gets burned off as time goes by, and too much of it will wreck your catalytic converter, so.
Not something we see very often, because most people don't change their oil too often, but it's something that I'm kind of cognizant of.
Mark: Sure. So this is obviously a very high performance semi racing vehicle. How reliable is it?
Bernie: Really reliable. I mean, I think the neat thing about now Audi R8 is that if you want to get into it, I mean it's essentially a Lamborghini Gallardo. This is a V8 model, so it's kind of tuned down a little bit, because I believe the Lambo's all have V10s, and of course the Audi R8's are available with a V10 as well. But I mean, the car goes really well. It's got like a 420 something horsepower in a 3,500 pound little rocket. It's was a pretty good moving car. I mean, they're very reliable. I mean yeah, they're going to be more expensive to fix than your average, like an Audi A4, but for the kind of car it is, it's a really good bargain and you can get them used for a good price. I mean, even new, they're well priced. I think if this is the kind of car you want, this is a great vehicle to own.
Mark: So, if you're looking for service for your R8 or any Audi in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at (604) 327-7112 to book your appointment. You have to call and book ahead. They're always busy.
Bernie: Always busy.
Mark: Check out the website, pawlikautomotive.com. Hundreds of videos and blog posts about repairs and maintenance of all makes and models of cars. And of course, bragging about 20 time winner of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. And, thank you so much for watching the podcast. We appreciate it. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks for watching, and thanks Mark.
