Ricky

I have owned my Z now for almost 2 years, and have had 1 transmission replacement due to the common 3rd gear grind.

I'm on my second transmission right now, with about 6k miles on it so far. I began to notice when I was shifting, it'd "click" into gear sometimes, and was a little hard to get fully into gear EVEN with the clutch FULLY depressed!

I was worried I'd have to get a whole new transmission again, which is a pain in the ***. Renting a car, giving your car up for a few days, ect ect.

So a little while ago I talked to VANDYZ, who works for Crawford Z Parts out in TN. He suggested to me to replace the tranny fluid with Redline Shockproof Lightweight. He said it would make it feel a bit smoother, and make shifting easier.

Now if anyone here drove a BMW manual transmission, that is how I feel shifting a car should be. Smooth, quick, no clicking/feeling gears, ect ect.

Well after taking VANDYZ's advice, I bought 4 quarts of the redline, which came to only about $35 bucks. Went to the local Jiffy Lube to get it done. If you provide your own fluid, it's a $40 service fee. So basically I ended up paying close to $75.

Now let me tell you, the first few miles I couldn't really notice a difference, I figured it'd take a few miles for the fluid to get into the gears. So after about 15 miles, I noticed the shifting was MUCH smoother, quicker, it reduced the clicking of the gears dramatically, and I didn't have to push the shifter into gear with as much stress as before. I usually have some trouble putting it back into first without hearing a click, but now it almost seems as the shifter slides into gear effortlessly.

Now the thing is, when I asked Nissan about it - they said it'd void the warranty if they did it. I asked them to do it when they changed my tranny. So I figure, I can either run the risk of using the stock fluids and maybe get a grind again, or run this fluid, reduce the chances. Not eliminating the grinding chance, but reducing it, and IF it grinded again, I can always just re-drain and put nissan fluid back in for the servicing.

I just thought I'd let everyone know, since I've seen some threads about the crappy shifting on the Z. I hope this helps some of you guys.

Z'd

who at Nissan said it would void your warranty?? someone at the dealership??
As long as you are using fluid that meets the api service code specified by Nissan GL-4 you should be all set.
I changed to Amsoil gear lube early on and solved my balky shifting issues immediately!!!

Ricky

The service manager at Nissan told me that if they put any other fluids besides the Nissan fluids, it would void the warranty. But I'm not concerned about that issue, because if you think about it, when you get an oil change at a Goodyear or Jiffy Lube, they don't put NISSAN oil in, and that doesn't void the warranty.. So I doubt any dealership would refuse sevice because of this.

If they ever gave crap you could swap it back out, or just say Jiffy Lube/Goodyear serviced it and that's the fluid they put in, not my fault!

Dissident

iTrader: (1)

You should get that in writing; that's BS. I'll bet they back down from it. Always looking for a way to get out of waaranties....

___DJK___

iTrader: (2)

Jeff or Jason if you are out there, is this a service Performance Nissan could perform on our cars? I would be kind of skeptical to get it done elsewhere if it supposedly voids the warranty.

zxsaint

Where can I get some of that redline tranny oil?

bhobson333

Before you change to Redline Lightweight Shockproof, listen to my story:

I took delivery in December, 2002. After a few thousand miles I put Redline gear oil in the diff & Redline Lightweight Shockproof in the tranny, to try to eliminate some of the stiffness in the shift gates. It did the job, the shift was lighter & better, and I ran some tests & figured 2-3% improvement in fuel economy.

Around 14,000 miles I started having that problem people report where it grinds going into 3rd & 5th. It didn't happen often, but occasionally, & I had heard that the lightweight shockproof could cause syncro wear. That's when I decided to change to Royal Purple 75W90 MaxGear in the tranny, & I went ahead & put the same in the diff at the same time. (I use a fluid pump I got from Pep-Boys to pump the oil into the tranny & diff. A second pair of hands is highly recommended.)

The shift grinding is happening less and less often in the year since the Royal Purple has gone in there, but it hasn't gone away completely. I think it is making an improvement. I gave my service writer advance warning that he may be replacing my tranny under warranty one of these days, but it's not a big problem & It's looking less and less like I will ever actually have it done.

If you're going to change the oil I'd definitely recommend the Royal Purple; it feels good in the tranny, not sticky at all.

FLdrifter

BMW's shift the way they do because they cost as much as they do.

gra350z

Is this the Amsoil gear lube you used? It's the only one I found that is rated GL-4.

"AMSOIL SAE 80W-90 Synthetic Gear Lube (GL-4)"

Gary

maximumsportZ

iTrader: (25)

I used amsoil also in both my tranny and LSD.

http://www.amsoil.com/products/tgr.html

AMSOIL Series 2000 Synthetic 75W-90

4 qts. for tranny 2 qts. for diff.

API MT-1, GL-2 THROUGH GL-5

AMSOIL Series 2000 Synthetic Gear Lube is a race-proven extreme pressure lubricant engineered to meet the severe high-load and high-temperature demands of contemporary race and commercial vehicle differentials and gear-lube equipped transmissions.

It meets all our GL needs.

gra350z

Thank You

onii

iTrader: (1)

if someone could make a guide with pictures that would help me out a lot. i cant figure out how to do this ?=p

Z'd

maximumsportZ hit it- it is Amsoil code TGR
It will handle both applications with no 'mixing'.

HanZolo

One piece of advice, remove the Fill plug first and then the Drain plug. It shouldn't matter on cars this new, but dumping the tranny fluid and then finding out the Fill plug is stuck makes for a shitty day!

Ricky

Hmm.. Well honestly I never felt a car with Royal Purple or Amsoil so I can't compare, but I've never heard of redline promoting synco wear. It does the exact oppsite, but reducing the amount of friction.

I've heard of Royal Purple, and their products being pretty good, so anyone who read this, I personally choose Redline, but I'm sure the Royal Purple is very good also.

John

iTrader: (17)

Had Redline Syn in my last car, 5th car started grinding immediately. Swapped it out for the OEM fluid, and the grind went away. I won't touch the stuff ever again... good luck!