Meanwhile - 5,000km later....

[Bluerex]

auto 128 lwb black colour coded bars buckets with arm rest cruise crewvan

Wow! Nice!
I hope you love yours as much as I love mine. We used a half litre of oil in the first 3000k - running in while towing a lump of a car trailer and rally car. We were warned this might happen, not that concerned at this stage.

c

[Bluerex]

If you would consider s'hand seats I have a pair of Stratos Eagle Sports seats surplus to my requirements (very similar to the current 3000 LS model at http://www.stratos.com.au/products/car/ ). They have inside armrests (but not outer). I'm listed in the Canberra white pages as Collins, Gregory D if you're interested.

Thanks Greg, but after some checking, we would need fabricated mounts and an engineer's certificate with these seats too. Still looking for an easier option.

Thanks for the offer

C

[BobD]

My T4 TDI stayed on the full mark for the full 15,000km between services for the whole time I had it (108,000km). The 128kw T5 was half way down the dip stick at about 10,000km, which is the only time I have ever checked it! I am too lazy! It has just been serviced at 15,000km so I hope it it is full now. I must check it so that I can see whether it is on the full mark after being serviced.

If it did use half a litre at 10,000km it will be the first vehicle I have had for a while that uses any oil at all. Even my 1986 Kawasaki GTR1000 motorbike with over 200,000km on the clock doesn't use any oil between 6,000km services. Since I didn't check the oil when I brought the T5 home I don't know what the starting oil level was. However, I assume it would be on the full mark when it left the dealer unless T5's are different from other cars.

[gregozedobe]

.... Still looking for an easier option.

You might try some of the people who supply seats for buses and motorhomes. They might have "engineered" bases. When I was looking for a swivel base for my passenger seat I noticed there wasn't much available that was both specifically made for T5s and had an engineer's report available.

[shogun2]

You could always have a look on the ebay.de web site for T5 seats. Just have to get someone who reads German.

[Tornado T5]

IIRC, Veh-Quip (Victoria), 1800 302 432 which supplied the second row individual bucket seats to my T5 also supply armrests to the existing front bucket seats which look very similar to the factory fitted version...which I must say makes for a very relaxing drive on a long cruise...wife wonders why I didn't order the factory seats with armrests for the passenger side, I replied I didn't think she would be in there long enough to justify the cost....ooops..