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Old 10-26-2020, 08:40 PM   #17 (permalink)
MN Driver
2000 Honda Insight
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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I used to visit the BITOG(Bob is the Oil Guy) forum on a daily basis and read through oil analysis and used to post mine. There are tons of gearboxes(auto, manual, differentials) and it always seems like no matter how many miles you've put on a gearbox, the numbers always seem to suggest that the wear is very high relative to what's expected.

I have a feeling that this type of equipment is a bit more robust and can handle wear a bit better because I know so many cars that have 150k+ miles that have never had the transmission drained. I think the newer automatic transmissions are weaker is general though and I'd personally never want to have them go more than 100k miles on their fluid.

With all that said, I've changed my manual transmission oil every 3 or 4 years or so, which non-COVID times I usually drive 15k annually. I don't bother with analysis because if things look rough, I know I'll still drive the transmission until it fails, but I don't expect my manual transmission to fail because the known failures for the transmission in my Honda Insight are input shaft bearing failures and syncro ring clocking tab issues, which aren't really influenced by fluid changes. It's an easy fluid swap 1.5 qts for mine too.

Are there any known failures of the gearbox on the Leaf in the Nissan Leaf forum? I imagine most people don't really do much for maintenance on their EVs, whether or not the manual says you should.

I had a 1995 Geo Prizm that specced 75w90 gear oil, in the winter it shifted slower than I was happy with and I put Pennzoil Synchromesh into it, which is basically the generic version of the GM(AC Delco) manual transmission oil.

Automatic transmission fluid is an oil. It's colored red and has things like extreme pressure additives and friction modifiers to help the clutches grip and doesn't go into an engine but it's an oil.
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