UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi guys,

As most of us have experienced the expensive failure the gearbox. I have spoke to a few people with the issues related to the failures.

I have future plans for my gti and wish to keep it for some time. I do not want to ever have to replace the gearbox again so thought what can i do to prevent it.

One of the guys i spoke to works for Mercedes has carried out many gearbox replacements and said basically, 'the bearings wear, eventually causing the bearing racings to spin and wear the casing of the gearbox.'

He also said if you want it to last, do regular oil changes!

Kind of makes sense. VW have used naff bearings that just aren't man enough for the job. I guess to make them last longer is to keep the oil as clean as possible.

What do you guys think?

Makes sense. I changed the gearbox oil in mine after about 77,000 miles as a preventative measure. Cost about £30 at the dealership if I remember.

I can't tell if the oil had been changed at any point up until then but everything with my 'box is good so...

Cheers

I've never seen gearbox oil changes in service books, so how often would it be done normally with out you asking? (i.e. as part of a service routine?) My car is about to hit 40k and I got no gearbox problems, so would it be a good idea to get mine changed fairly soon

No thats right. Oil in gearboxs shouldn't ever need changing just topping up. I am going to do mine every lube service which is 10k miles.

I bought mine last year with 41k on the clock. this year 50k ticks over and the box started to whine. 2 months later it failed. I would change it mate.

Some people are just lucky and may never experiance a gearbox failure but seems to be uncommon on this model.

I agree, some are just v lucky! I've just done mine - my car is at 42K Miles, and now feels much better for a full change - a bit of metal/swarf still came out with the oil - brother reckons these are the bits worn off from bad changes, wear and tear, etc.
VW don't reckon it ever needs doing from when I asked, but then I don't quite believe them. Having checked a Haynes Manual I bought recently it reckons you change the Gearbox Oil once every 2 years or 20,000 Miles.

I'd do it myself if it is relatively simple and I know what to use.

There has to be a few gearboxes that will be lucky and never fail below 100k. Look at Si's for instance

My car had a g/box replaced at VW with 82.000 on the clock

Mouse_GTI wrote:There has to be a few gearboxes that will be lucky and never fail below 100k. Look at Si's for instance

Don't jinx it!!

Too l8, its goin to go on ur tomz Ojin

Some one on here was talking about replacing the plastic 5th gear bearing with a metal one.

I'm at 73000 miles, so far no problems, gearbox is very quiet. But I'm still so paranoid that I'm considering a gearbox rebuild before the dredded 'which shall not be mentioned' happens.

We need to get hold of this part number for the matching metal bearing. HELP!

is the oil change easy to do yourself?

Yes as far as i know. You need a 17mm allen key. there are two drain plugs. One at the bottom and one at the side of the gearbox.

In fact would be good for me to do a diy guide to changing the gearbox oil.

Firstly the bottom one is removed to allow the oil to drain.
Once drained, replace it and remove the drain plug on the side.
Now remove the speedo cable from the gearbox and fill.
When the gearbox is full the oil will then start coming out the the side.
Put the side drain plug back in and the speedo cable.

I think its as simply as that.

Not sure what oil should be used though.

Does anyone know????

Cheers

Somebody on here suggested 75W80 Synthetic and so thats what I used which worked fine. I used Castrol SMX-S which you can get in Halfords for £11.99 per litre. You'll need 3 because the Gearbox is 2.7L in size. Its possible to get the oil into the filling plug on the side without removing the plastic block on the side (not sure its the speedo cable) although its doable.

when i changed the oil i got the gearbox oil from my local dealer

came to £30 for the three bottles

Is the oil from the Dealers Synthetic? I only ask because Mineral Oil was available with the same weighting for about £6 or £7 but I thought the extra was worth it.