What’s your view?
 

I've followed that through and I suspect the oil formula has been released and is covered by other brands.

There is no justification for the ZF prices other than corporate greed.

I am in the same Boat as I just wanted opinion as some of us would swear by Dealer snake oil.+++

I’ve spoken at length to the head technician at Mackies (the Glasgow ZF gearbox specialists) on the 3 occasions that I’ve had the fluid in my box changed (and flushed with warm oil through the specialist ‘pumpy-squirty’ machine). To summarise, he regards the gearbox as a unit of metal parts filled with oil which is circulated through a filter to remove particles caused by wear - not too dissimilar to an engine - so why would you not change the oil? My car has now done just under 179K miles and (touch wood) the box (which has had at least 4 fluid changes to my knowledge) is still going fine. Mackies charge a little over £100 (IIRC) for a ‘gearbox service’ and a replacement gearbox is around £3K. If it’s done properly, changing the fluid can’t do any harm, so why wouldn’t you if there’s a probability of it extending the life of your gearbox?

I can’t agree more! I was just trying to get feeler on the non Zf approved oil.+++ ZF had the monopoly on the oil.

I’d give Mackies or Chester Transmissions a call and ask what they use. The former have been very helpful in my experience.

Can anyone who used these companies comment?

Like The Laird, I got my D2's 5HP24A serviced at Mackies and its around £154 well spent. I didnt ask what oil they used but they are an authorised ZF "partner".

I attach a ZF document (Edition July 2017) which lists all the approved lubricants as well as re-iterating the maintenance recommendations for auto boxes which suggest that in the case of "above average operating conditions such as:
- frequent freeway driving in the upper speed range
- offensive, sporty driving style
- frequent trailer operation
it is recommended to refresh (change) the oil of the automatic transmission every 100,000 km or no later than after 8 years."

Not sure what they mean by "offensive, sporty driving style" but we'll put that down to something lost in the translation!

Probably refers to our Marcin!:p

I've used both companies (search for my thread entitled "clunking after Mackies flush" or something similar.

Both Mackies and Chester transmissions were good to deal with. Mackies changed the fluid to ZF Lifeguard 8 but couldn't update the software of my transmission because it wouldn't accept it. That left a clunk between 1st and 2nd gear once the transmission had warmed up. They did their best to get rid of it, but it remained.

The car was shipped to Chester Transmissions who sent the mechatronic unit away for refurbishing and reverted back to Lifeguard 6 oil. Resetting the adaptations fixed the clunking between the gears.

Chester recommended the oil in our transmissions is changed conventionally rather than using the sucky pumpy blowy machine. They also recommended changing the oil every couple of years.