Service message on dash

[Tinytim]

Can anyone explain how the service indicator works on a mk5 Gti?

I changed the oil myself a few months back.

Today the light came on saying service now, so I am presuming its coming up because it was a year after it was reset.
Or is it more clever than that, can it detect the quality of the oil or anything else?

Mine is set to a time distance but I seem to remember another car I had on long life could say it needed a service anywhere between 16-22k miles based on how hard it was driven.

[mad_pete]

I think it just counts days and miles based on what it was reset to.

[JStav]

The service on the golf was done just over a year ago on my car, however between that time it's only done about 3,000 miles.

Surely the service message hsould have come up regardless as the time period has expired before the mileage could trigger it?

I haven't had any message    Going in next week for a full service regardless!

[E30Dom]

It works on a year or mileage... Mine was showing 2700miles one minute and service now the next when I first got... VW services free as a gesture of goodwill! Now it gets serviced every 6-8k miles so about 3 times a year...

[Tinytim]

Thanks for the info guys.

I'll do a search in here to find out how to reset it.

Doing my own oil changes so it's getting done every 6 months.