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?
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2002 Final Edition S8. Ebony black with Silver Grey leather and myrtle wood trim. Current mods: solar sun roof, 20mm rear spacers, 15 mm on front, red brembo callipers, 6k headlights, rear view camera, engine remap, alloy dash dial rings, alloy navi rings, tt/phaeton pedal upgrade, (and custom matching foot rest) dension ipod interface & parrot hands free kit (both fully hidden), av input, tv in motion switched thro' PF switch in blanking plug right of steering column, Audi 'quattro' sill covers, repositioned centre console switches, radio clock, .
Planned mods: auto-dimming rear view mirror, dash cam (as steamship's), fit the ski hatch, refit philips drl's (or maybe not - nope, definitely not - horrible botch!).
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