Dealer told me not to service my Zf 6sp - opinions?

[bossmang]

nope

[Puffwagon]

60000 miles, not km as I previously said.

[El Andrew]

Or 1 Snowys Cruise

[cm.]

Finally got the service done, took me absolutely ages. Took the mechatronics unit out and changed all the sleeves as well. Oil was a very dark brown at 135000km. Gulf western smells horrible hah. Ended up buying a new steel pan with the sump plug rather than retro-fitting to the stock pan, glad I did as dropping the oil without a plug is very messy. 

 

Thanks for everyone's help - especially that Gulf Western, as that alone probably saved me about $400 on oil.

 

Shifts a bit better but hard to say, haven't driven it enough yet to tell. Biggest thing I'm hoping for is resolving an occasional hard shift issue between 5th and 6th gear (both up and down). It tends to do this once the transmission temp is over 80C and I'm driving on a long stretch at about 70kmh. Anyone else had this issue at all?

Edited 12/05/19 08:08 AM by cm.

[O Trader]

You will benefit from dropping the pan regardless of whether its plastic or steel so you can do a visual on the state of the two magnets in the pan and also a visual on the filter which has an outlet which you can see into.

 

I just removed mine (owned from new) with the box having 161 000 klm on it with standard power used as a daily drive with no hard life and the magnets and the top of the filter plate were covered in a silver grey slime. The filter still had is manufacture date on it 07AUG2010.  The Ford dealer "flushed" the box during the cars 135 000 klm service at a cost of $450. All they do is hook their pump unit onto the trans cooler ports and cycle through "their" fluid.

 

ZF Lifeguard 6 is a transparent pale golden yellow colour. What came out of my box was red. I called them and quoted my invoice number and got the details. They used what they called a "Red Fully Synthetic Multi Trans Fluid" and a "Conditioner". They could not tell me anymore than that. The pan never came off and the filter was not changed.

 

Summary: IMO -

1. Do not follow the sealed for life philosophy,

2. Drop the pan each time and used your Mk 1 eyeball and best judgement (it's your car and your not doing it like every oil change),

3. Ford dealers do not even use the correct fluid, and

3. Do the work yourself (if you can) you will learn so much and develop good engineering practices along with knowing the 100% accurate service history of your car.

Edited 31/10/19 02:15 AM by O Trader