Why does my SEAT Altea diesel need servicing every 10,000 miles?

I have a SEAT Altea XL 1.9 diesel coming up to 40,000 miles in three and half years. I have always taken it to the main service agent for servicing, but I am not really happy with their service so intend to take it to a guy who looks after my other car. This mechanic said that the SEAT required special synthetic oil which was expensive, but that was offset by longer service intervals. I told him the service interval was every 10,000 miles. He was surprised at this. What is your view? Why is it 10,000 miles and not 15,000 like some VAG models?
Most of VAG has now switched back to 10,000 mile or annual servicing because the Longlife regime was resulting in too many problems.
Answered by Honest John on

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