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Gearbox oil change worked for me too.
VW tell us that the manual gear oil in the Golf Mk4 never needs changing and it's good for the life of the vehicle. Being a skeptical chap, and my car having covered 150k miles I decided to change it anyway.
I did some research online about various exotic gear oils that other people had tried in that gearbox and the consensus seemed to be that the newer VW gear oil recommended for that box was as good or better than the alternatives. Pretty cheap too. I think it cost me about £20 for the oil. I also got a small tube of Molyslip for gearboxes from my local Halfords store as I've used that stuff to good effect in the past.
(Note: 'Molyslip' in North America may be a different product, and I've heard of people having bad experiences with it over there. I guess the thing to remember about Molysllip - in all its guises - is that it isn't an oil additive as such; it's a treatment for an engine or a gearbox that treats the metal surfaces. The oil is just a way to get it to the right place. With that in mind, you only need a tiny amount of the active ingredient to work. I've used the UK branded products for decades with no problems. Oh, and Molyslip in automatic gearboxes? Bad idea!)
I was going to change the gear oil myself, but what with the engine undertray and limited access to a driveway to get it up on ramps and all the crawling under the vehicle it would involve, I phoned my local mechanic. The first thing he said was "You don't need to change the oil in those gearboxes," and then he said he'd change it out for £15. Sold!
Once he had the car up on the lift, it took him all of 10 minutes to do the job. I drove off and the difference was immediately obvious. The car drove more smoothly and rolled more easily when coasting. I took it for a run around a couple of my local mpg test routes and could not believe what my onboard mpg meter was telling me. (One route at 50mph and one at 30mph.) I was apparently getting at least 5% better fuel economy than I'd ever achieved before on those runs, and that was with an engine that had only been running half an hour.
Unfortunately, from the scientific testing point of view, I put the new oil and the Molyslip in at the same time, so I don't know which was responsible for the improvement. My guess is it was a combination. In any case this was one of the cheapest and easiest ways I have found to bump up mpg. For £35 I'm saving myself nearly £100/year in fuel.
It's basic maintenance really, and only a 'mod' in the sense that I'm modifying the manufacturer's recommended servicing schedule.
My theory is that these extended service intervals are often marketing hype. If a fleet manager sees that servicing is only required every 2 years (or whatever) then that looks more attractive. Manufacturers are not really interested in what happens to their products after 100k miles, ...which is understandable. Well, I think the engineers are interested in longevity, and all power to the engineers, but marketing managers have different priorities I think, and their interests are not always aligned with the interests of their customers.
Last edited by paulgato; 10-03-2013 at 07:23 PM..
Reason: typo
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