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Is it worth changing gearbox oil?
smilespergallon:
--- Quote from: breeze on February 05, 2023, 08:07:35 am ---You might find that oil is a bit harder to get into gear when very cold.
--- End quote ---
You're right. It snowed today in the UK and the temperature was around zero.
Getting in to first and second gear was noticeably more difficult. Not impossible, but definitely takes a bit more effort than it did before. The other gears such as third and above are okay, just first and second were the stiffer ones, not sure why.
So yeah, it's not annoying enough to change it in the meantime, but if I change it again in the future I think I'd probably go for the extortionate genuine VW oil, or try that Redline MTL that Pudding suggested.
So yeah, Fuchs Titan Sintofluid is fine when it's about 2 celsius and above, but below that and it's harder to get in to gear.
pudding:
As a guess, I'd say it's because 1st and 2nd are the biggest gears, and therefore harder work on the syncro rings to speed match them. Syncros don't work well with thick oil, which is probably why VW keep changing the formula.
Normally improvements can be made using aftermarket fluids in most cars, but VW's gear oil is one example where it simply cannot be improved upon.
I vaguely remember a post on VWVortex years ago where a chemical expert analysed VW's gear oil and said it's way better than anything even in the racing oils market.
I can't remember the exact Redline flavour I used as there's a few of them. It might have been the 75W80 flavour. Redline's shockproof is also known to improve the shift on VW boxes. Not always from stone cold, that will take some trial and error, but generally when hot during high rpm shifts, where the stock oil can struggle.
You could take a brave pill and sling some automatic transmission fluid in it :grin: It's standard practice in E39 M5s and some other manuals of that era. Those boxes are even worse than VW's for 1st-2nd cold shifts, but auto trans fluid totally transforms them.
smilespergallon:
--- Quote from: Pudding on March 09, 2023, 01:47:31 pm ---You could take a brave pill and sling some automatic transmission fluid in it :grin: It's standard practice in E39 M5s and some other manuals of that era. Those boxes are even worse than VW's for 1st-2nd cold shifts, but auto trans fluid totally transforms them.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Pudding.
So if I were to go the brave route, are we talking about 100ml of ATF to thin the current oil down a little bit?
pudding:
--- Quote from: smilespergallon on March 09, 2023, 10:40:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: Pudding on March 09, 2023, 01:47:31 pm ---You could take a brave pill and sling some automatic transmission fluid in it :grin: It's standard practice in E39 M5s and some other manuals of that era. Those boxes are even worse than VW's for 1st-2nd cold shifts, but auto trans fluid totally transforms them.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Pudding.
So if I were to go the brave route, are we talking about 100ml of ATF to thin the current oil down a little bit?
--- End quote ---
Nope, drain all the gear oil out and replacing it with transmission fluid :happy2:
It was on my to do list for mine but I never got around to it. Something like LiquiMoly TopTec 1200 would suffice.
It seems like an alien concept putting automatic transmission fluid in a manual gearbox, but auto boxes also have meshing gears inside them like a manual box, and ATF does them no harm :happy2: VW's MTF is so thin, it's probably not far off ATF when hot anyway.
It won't hurt to try it. Just drain it out and put MTF back in if it doesn't work out :smiley: You'll soon know, but just drive it gently in your local area at first.
Obviously I'm not pushing this as a wide scale recommendation, but merely as an experiment to see if it helps, so do it at your own risk :grin: If it doesn't hurt M5 gearboxes, I can't see it harming a VW box either tbh. Some OEMs even use ATF in their Manuals :happy2:
FatWelshBoy:
Ebay item 404168239273 and multi buy 3 bottles at £21.61 each.
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