HEY ALL,

MY 2002 VDP IS ABOUT TO HIT THE 70K MARK. I do not know the history of the vehicle so am unsure if the tranny fluid was ever changed. My car currently shifts perfectly smooth with no signs of transmission problems.

My questions are as follows:

1) should i change the fluid as I have heard after a certain amount of miles its not a good idea.

2) do you guys recommend blackdog synthetic ATF? as seen here..
http://www.motorcarsltd.com/BDM-synthetic-ATF.html

i do not want to pay jaguars 80 dollar a quart. or is there another brand that has shown better results?

3) how much will i need to buy? I am thinking roughly 5-6 quarts as I am assuming 5 quarts will stay in the torque converter?

4) The shop that does all the work on my car said i have 2 options. A drain and refill or a drain and refill with complete change of all filters? i think thats what they said at least..so what do you guys recommend?

any help is appreciated as this is the last thing on my list of to do's for my jag and i want to get it right.

 

My opinion, unencumbered by actual knowledge or experience, is that the fluid needs to be changed and the sooner the better. Most vehicles have recommended transmission change intervals of 30k to 60k miles and I really do not believe that ZF and ESSO created a magically fluid that will last forever. I change my two other Ford vehicles on 30k mile intervals per their Owners Manuals.

Another opinion is that the 'life' interval was created by the marketing department rather than the engineers during the 'free service' wars of the '90's.

As to the replacement ATF; the Bemmer guys' opinion seem to lean toward Castrol Import Multi-Vehicle ATF (available for $5 or less per qt). Their label specifies compliance with the LT71141 requirement. The Bemmer dudes seem to have rejected the ESSO only religious belief a lot sooner and stronger than the Jaguar folks.

Personally, I am going to change to the Castrol before the 60k mile level, 3k to go. I have the filter and 6 qts in the garage. After that my plan is 30k changes drains only.

After reading the debates for 3 years that is where I come out. Incidentally, the cost of the ESSO fluid is about $10 - $12 per L in 20L containers. The price that Jaguar dealers charge is enough alone to make me refuse to use it.

Just search 'LT71141' here and on the associated BMW forums and you will get more opinions than you might want.

 

thank you test point..that was very informative...and helpful!

 

and i agree about jaguar dealers prices..my independent jaguar guy even wanted close to 600 to change my atf with the jaguar recommended atf...yikes

 

My ZF5HP24 Repair/Rebuild manual states that ZF recommends 10 year intervals for fluid change. You can buy the VW/AUDI G 052 162 A2 for around $16 a liter and is the SAME fluid as the ESSO LT71141 if you are worried about mixing fluid types.

bob gauff

 

interesting motorcarman..so would the general consensus be to go with the same type of fluid with the vw/audi g 052 162 a2 or am i ok going with the castrol?

 

While were talking tranny fluid, I'm planning on doing mine on the XJR. Dealer wants $32 a quart for the fluid. Is there any other options that would be as good. I know it has been replaced once around 40k by the dealer so I'm planning on doing a 5 quart fill then see what it looks like, if it is nasty I'll drive a bit then change it again.

 

I used fluid and filter from Motorcars.LTD - no affiliation. I think the fluid was called Pentosin and they recommend it. Better get 6 liters to be on the safe side. I think I got about 5 liters out. Just make sure you go through the fill procedure, cycle the gears while the tranny is warm and fill it while running. Of course it's easier to fill it while cold, put the plug back in and run it a while then take the plug back out and finish it up. The fill plug on mine was pretty tough to get out and the exhaust is very close, so it's not a real fun job.

 

Personally i am quite overwhelmed by all the information out there. Castrol, Mobil 1 synthetic, vw/audi brand and esso..which way to go?

if the atf is red is that just a dye as i have read about and doesnt have any effect on the fluid?

at 70k miles should i add an additive? and if so which one?

 

Me too, don't know the history of the gearbox I'm currently using, a cheaper flushing type oil would be excellent info, but, being a Merc box, I'm thinking the Jaguar recommended is the only option at the moment. Someone with one of these gearboxes who has ran it with an alternative for some distance out there?

 

From my research for my 02 XJR;
XJRs have the Mercedes 722.6 5 speed box that ONLY uses MB specific fluid...there is an ebay vendor I got 6 quarts and a filter from...$75.00.
I did a service at 80000 miles soon after buying the car...it is not that hard if you have done tranny fluid changes before...I measured fluid out and replaced 5 quarts after dropping the pan, cleaning the magnetic filter in the bottom of the pan and the pan itself. "Sealed for life" is a euphemism for, "Lifespan of 100000 miles". I like to get 300K out of my cars so I plan on doing a fluid swop out and filter change every 50K. Total tranny capacity is 14 quarts including TC so you are only ever cycling out fluid using this method.
Fluid is red...do NOT use Pentosin under ANY circumstances...this is mineral oil for VW/Audi trannies and will not mix with the fluid in our transmissions. Esso fluid is for the ZF box in the NA XJ8. Synthetic ATF?....I would not take the risk of usiong anything other than the MB fluid which isn' that expensive anyway off ebay. (I used to work for MB in Sales so I know that MB fluid IS in fact unique for their own manufactured boxes).
The MB part number for the 722.6 tranny is 001 989 68 03 10. This is an old part number and has been superceded by 001 989 68 03 13. The Ebay Vendor I used is "mbdeals", (no affiliation).
The 722.6 tranny is a popular fitment...tough as nails too. You'll find them in the Dodge Sprinter Van behind a very nice MB Diesel engine and several other MB Passenger Cars.

 

I am trying to figure out if i will change the tranny fluid on my 98 vdp. I always saw the lifetime claim as "get it past warranty life". however that changed I worked for a company that had a fleet of toyota carollas these cars were driven HARD-like they were stolen HARD and use toyota's lifetime fluid. It was never changed two cars had 300000 miles plus. the odometers max out at this reading. around 7 had over 200,000.There were never any tranny issues until they changed service centers and the new center insisted fluid should be changed. We started dropping trannys like crazy my car had 135000 and tranny started slipping. The shop was using conventional fluid with an additive that was suppose to make it equivalent. I think they had just got one of those push pull machines and saw easy money. For what its worth the car before the one that got a new tranny, I drove for 250,000 of its 300,000 miles before i got into crash with original fluid and droven hard.

 

i personally cant find anyone willing to change mine without using the Jaguar esso fluid..kinda frustrating here in AZ.

 

I followed pjkbrit's advice and purchased the MB fluid from the ebay vendor. I plan on performing the drain/refill this weekend along with the filter change. I'll report back on the status and performance of my trans after doing so. Hopefully I won't have to walk back to my house to send the reply.

 

Hey all found this online it only refers to north america cars but since it contains specs and tech info i thought it could be helpful:

http://www.onlinefreeebooks.net/auto...talog-pdf.html

 

Interesting - it shows the 5HP24 in XJ8 4.0's up thru 1999... what's in 2000 - 2003's?

 

i thought about the same thing too. since my car had the engine and tranny replaced old owner gave me receipts and he was told doner was a 2001 i still need to verify as the engine was a cylinder liner failure. i hope they were truthful as i dont want to deal with the tensioner/cylinder issues. At first i thought maybe info was printed in 2000 but copyright says 2003, i dont know what to make of it.

 

Completed the drain/refill today using the 6qt. kit from mbdeals on Ebay.

1. First task was to use a shallow clear plastic tub that I had marked at 1 qt. inteverals up to 10 qts.
2. Placed the tub under the trans pan and removed the drain plug
3. The plug allowed 3 qts. to be removed.
4. Then dropped the back side of the pan in order to minimize any mess
5. This added 1.5 qts. to the tub.
6. Cleaned the pan and installed gasket that came with the kit
7. Installed new filter that also came with the kit
8. Reinstalled pan and torqued to spec.
9. Started car and let warm up before adding first qt.
10. Added 1st qt. and cycled through the gears
11. Continued adding the fluid while cycling through the gears after each qt.
12. Let the car sit for another 10 minutes with freshly added 4.5 qts. and then slowly drove around the block watching the tach and feeling the shifts.
13. Then went for a "spirited" drive without any problems.

The old fluid actually looked pretty clean. I'm not sure that it needed to be changed, but with 121K miles I didn't want to take any chances.