Leaderboard

Sorry that this is so late but I haven't looked this far back before. I did loads of research on this because My X3 with 8 speed gearbox that I had at the time was also sealed for life. A self fulfilling prophecy in my opinion. If you want life to be longer, service it. I found on the ZF transmission site that they recommended 60-80k miles for fluid change. I found a ZF transmission specialist in Newcastle who quoted £480 for oil and filter replacement. (5 years ago). As far as I could tell the problems caused by particles getting disturbed was only when the gearbox had been run well over the service intervals. Hope it helps someone.

Hi dont bother with the tools as they change them from year to year and Audi want a fortune to do the job, after all they have exclusive access to the whole range, I bought three tools to change the seal on my A6 none fitted and in the end my mechanic lost the plot with it and timed the engine up to TDC cylinder one, stuck a drill bit through the cam pulleys to lock it in and with an appropriate amount of silicon grease on the crank end tapped the new seal in to place with a toffee hammer, you must ensure that all the surfaces are clean before you do this paying extra attention to the the gasket seal film you have to apply as the crank seal carrier forms part of the mating surface of the sump pan, you can't get the seal in the wrong place as there are two witness marks one on the reluctor ring on the new seal and one on the engine casing, the crank position sensor sits just to the left of the reluctor. Steve.

Steve I replaced all the reverse lamps with new ones. And new bulbs. Put vasaline on seals when fitting. No moisture getting in. Was bad seals on lamps caused my problem. All fixed and new. Got lamps and fitments from Ebay.

I suspect you have that reversed. E10 has more of the water miscible alcohol than E5 (10% vs 5%), and hence also a lower calorific value.

The main differences in the fuel between normal and super are Super is higher octane generally 97-99 as opposed to 95. Wasted if your car isn't tuned for it. Super is E5. Normal is E10. People have reported worse fuel consumption with E10. Personally I always used E5 in our petrol car but it wasn't high mileage so the cost penalty wasn't great. The brands appear to have superior additives in their E10 and even more in their E5 super. Cleaner fuel lines and injectors etc. Price!!!! Loads of threads on this with no conclusions and lots of arguments. The only benefit for your car would be the cleaning benefits. In my diesel I used branded or supermarket diesel with a dose of Millers with occasional tanks of BP ultimate.

The supermarkets buy their petrol from which ever oil company currently offers it at the best price, so for example Tesco petrol may be rebranded BP this month, rebranded Shell next month, rebranded Esso the next, and so on.

Jumping in Rabin. No point in over thinking this. The benefits of using ‘super’ petrol are debatable for bread and butter cars. For what it’s worth, our 176k miles A3 has consumed supermarket fuel until about 10 years ago when its annual mileage was higher then normal. Over the last 10 years it’s generally run on Texaco ordinary, simply because it’s only 1p/litre dearer than Tesco 200 yds down the road - and I admit to be mistakenly brand conscious! Regards, Gareth.

Beany. If it meets exhaust emissions standards (has an MOT,) and oil consumption is not excessive, why are you worrying?

Choose any fuel you like that meets the RON95 specification. They all come from the same few refineries, even supermarket fuel.

Any fuel will be fine. But they do say that supermarket fuel isn't as good.

Hi John. yeah, you should change the Auto box oil. If it’s the ZF 8 speed then ZF recommend between 80-120,000km which equates to around 74,000mls tops in our money. Many have said that it has improved the smoothness of gear changes. All oil degrades over time. This includes differential oils as well.