Hi All,

I have my 2015 F-Type R at the dealer service for its 1st yearly service. I asked the service writer to provide a cost for drain/extraction and refill of the transmission fluid (no pan drop). He quoted $420.00. For folks that had the tranny fluid changed, is this with reason?

I also asked them to check the buzzing and rattling speakers (told them about this twice over the past year and provided TSB) and the high pitch wine from dash area when the AC is on and engine speed is over 2000RPM. He said the techs couldn't hear the noises. The noises are driving me batty. He said they cannot do anything on it unless they hear the noise. I asked the service writer if he listened and he said no, it is not his place and the techs have make the call. What if the techs have bad hearing or trying to get out of doing the work. He said he would escalate to his service manager. If this doesn't do anything I may have to talk to JLR customer care.

 

Why are you asking about the tranny oil. Is it looking dirty? I personally wouldn't risk it.

Jag officially has no recommendation to change the fluid and Audi actually recommends never to change the fluid on the 8HP. However, here is ZF's comment regarding the ZF 8HP tranny:

"Hello Mr. ---,

generally we suggest to change the oil between 80.000km and 120.00km. Attached you can find our
official list of lubricants (TE-ML11) with the necessary information about, when to change the oil and
what kind of oil you should use. The second document shows you how to change the oil. But, please
be careful, because you need any kind of tester to read out the temperature while you change the oil.
If the temperature is not correct, you could damage your transmission!
Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Kind regards
-----
ZF Services
Technische Projekte / Technical Projects

ZF Friedrichshafen AG
Untertürkheimer Straße 4, 66117 Saarbrücken, Deutschland/Germany
Telefon/Phone +
-----@zf.com
www.zf.com"



On a manual transmission, I have never, ever changed the fluid and they have always outlasted the car.(200k+ miles on a couple)

 

As a survivor of "lifetime transmission fluid" BMW fiasco during 90s I have strong feelings about such claims. Liftetime = Warranty Duration. You have to change fluid every 60K miles or kiss your transmission goodbye.

Changing transmission fluid and filter for automatic transmission is absolute must-do, if you don't do this it will fail at around 6 to 8 years mark.

 

For all my previous new cars, I had the transmission fluid changed at the first oil change due to possible break-in debris. Same reasoning as changing engine oil after 1200 miles. The service advisor said that they have never changed transmission fluid yet on an F-Type. Maybe I should hold out a bit longer (1 or 2 years). On my F355, the transmission is changed every year with all fluids. From Unhingd's comment, maybe it isn't wise to do right now.

 

Regarding the noises...your best bet is documenting it on video. Try to get the clip of the noise from the area of concern followed by a clip of the gauge cluster so the technician has an idea of what speed, RPMs, etc the noise is occurring at.

I've done this for MANY noises that the retailer was unable to duplicate and using the videos they were successful in pinpointing what the cause was.

 

My manual e46 330ci reached 155k miles and 10 years before the fluid was changed. It was not a good colour, and since being refilled the shift action has continued to improve. But, it did last a while.

When the fluid in an automatic passes its best, the shifting action will degrade. But generally you should only change it if you're also fitting a new filter (pan off).

 

Auto trannies are harder on fluid than manuals and I also don't buy the lifetime fill "thing". The 80,000 kms recommendation from ZF sounds reasonable to me....I wouldn't worry about doing it before then.

2 cents,
Dave

 

Heard back that the car is done and that the dealer service had 5 people listen for the stereo rattling issue and the high pitch wine issue and couldn't hear it. I will need to follow your lead on doing a video and also contact JLR Customer Care to authorize the work.

 

PM me. I see you are in San Diego County...are you going through Carlsbad or Jag San Diego?

 

The 2003+ S-type crowd learned the hard way to ignore the lifetime fill recommendation on the trnsmission. Change interval we adopted is 70K miles or so.

 

Question for anyone in the know. I understand of course for auto transmission F Types, or any other car with an auto transmission, the auto transmission has it's own, separate from engine oil, "transmission" oil (that is being talked about in this thread). But for manual transmission F's (like my '16 F Type base, 6 spd MT), am I correct in assuming that MT F's do not have separate "transmission" oil to change for the 6 spd MT, but only the separate gear oil in the rear axle hub?

 

Not true. The MT is physically separated from the engine (by the bellhousing containing the clutch and flywheel).

 

Thanks and noted that there is indeed separate transmission oil to change for MT F's, in addition to engine oil and rear axle hub oil. Good to know.

 

Not quite. MT uses gear oil, it is similar to differential. It lasts much longer (unless you grind gears a lot) and does require infrequent oil change. If you don't do track days - every 10 years or so.

Typically, I change engine and MT gear oil first time around 1000km, then revisit it when I start noticing sluggish shifts.

 

+1.

Not only not true for the F-Type, but not true for any manual transmission I've ever seen, including vintage cars as far back as the 1940s. They all have a self-contained oil supply and drain plug.

 

Sometime FWD car with MT would have integrated transmission and differential and would have one drain plug.

 

Correct. As is the case I believe with my wife's fwd 2010 MB B200 Turbo.

 

The ZF manual transmission actually uses a motor oil. Where the engine calls for a Castrol Edge Professional 0W-20, the ZF calls for a Castrol Edge Professional 10W-60. If it were using the same thin oil as the engine, the syncros wouldn't work. I would guess the pumpkin is using an even heavier oil (70W-90?)

 

Right, but never sharing the oil supply w/ the engine.

 

+1.