Gearbox oil argument!

So gearbox oil... it (like most fluid arguments) seems to be an emotive one! So as my local old-boy farmer likes to run all his landrovers' gearboxes, transfer boxes and diffs on a mix of "liquid grease and EP90... just use more liquid grease if you got leaks" I thought I'd start a poll! This has only till the end of tonight to run as I need to fill up my gearbox and transfer box on Monday!

Discover 1 300 TDI, R380 gearbox requires filling (the one with the 32mm drain plug)... options are:

1. MTF94 (landrover recommended right?)
2. ATF (good old reliable)
3. EP90 (err)
4. "liquid grease" and EP90 mix (err... but all the farm 'rovers keep on going!)

Open to options although i do have a 5 litre tub of ATF

MTF-94 has given me a far better gear change mate, although I can't see ATF giving you too many problems. CarLube do an MTF-94 now, available from most motor factors. I paid about £6 a litre for mine.

Cool as... it's likely to get the ATF in that case and MTF next time

hmm so MTF winning so far... it is multiple choice people so if ATFs ok you can vote ATF too - come on people love the ATF!

as landrover changed from the recommended ATF to MTF94 there must have been a reason, so thats what i put in mine when i did the transmission fluid changes, and evo in the tranny box, ep 90 evo mix in the diffs

R380 gearbox is a mystery to me...........I have never seen a gearbox for which the kind of oil u put in it to make so big difference.......I dunno what oil it had before but after I changed it with MTF94 I didnt recognise my car......It was enough tu push the gearstick with two fingers.
In my previous Patrol or in my wife's RAV4 I could had put sunflower oil in the gearbox and made no difference........I changed it 2 times in them and didnt even bother to be the same oil.

i have always used atf because we have loads at work and the boss is quite happy for me to have a little every now and then but this year i saw mtf94 in the auto factors so i changed the atf for mtf 94 but soon changed back gear changes were lots better with atf and mtf made the box realy stiff when cold the only problem with atf is not as good at preventing ware like the mtf stuff the othe thing to rember is the r380 and the lt77 have a pump inside to pump oil around the box gear oil is just to thick for thr pump to work propley

Use up the ATF that you already have.

Going with ATF this time as I have it then mtf nex time.

finite said:

Going with ATF this time as I have it then mtf nex time.

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TD5s had MTF from new. Much better gear change than my old 300 with ATF.

So went with ATF and wow what a difference! Mind you we did drain out what was basically muddy water (someone had been wading a lot without extending the gbox or tbox breathers )

would a litre of ep90 and the rest atf be ok

It's not recommended to mix oils.......unlless it's a fryer

The reason why you shouldn't use atf or any other oil than mtf is due to the synchros in a manual box and how they work. Synchros need a certain amount of friction to enable them to work. ATF does not have the friction modifiers to support this and as a result manual boxes run on atf over the years will have a more notchy change quality.

MTF is the only way to go........................and as for EP90 well that's just silly !!!!!!

finite said:

Discover 1 300 TDI, R380 gearbox requires filling (the one with the 32mm drain plug)... options are:

1. MTF94 (landrover recommended right?)

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I have to say that I thought that LR changed their mind to MTF94 with the introduction of the R380.

andyb66 said:

I have to say that I thought that LR changed their mind to MTF94 with the introduction of the R380.

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Hi Andy you are absolutely right, with the change to R380 the oil requirement also changed. The trouble is that loads of oil company sites still publish the out-of-date info when reccomending oils.

For me, there would have to be a strong reason NOT to go with the manufacturer's recommendation.

paul_c said:

For me, there would have to be a strong reason NOT to go with the manufacturer's recommendation.

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The point about this is that in the mid 90's atf was reccomended, but it isn't now, so which manufacturers reccomendation would you take, the early one or the developed later one?

The most current one

I changed from MTF to Difflock evo 1 in my TD5 box its so slick now, and being fully synthetic is got a long change interval.
Just so bloody expensive
David