synthetic trans. oil

[steve-wis]

Just drained the manual trans. on my '06 CE with 58000 miles. The oil was dark but not gritty at all. Replaced with Amsoil synthetic that is rated GL-4. After filling, went for about a 25 mile ride. Noticed a nice difference in shifting, smoother, and now will see if I can find an improvement in gas mileage. Will probably change it again at about 120000 miles. I am shooting for 275000 miles out of this car. I put on about 18000 a year. I know the book never calls for a fluid change in the manuals, but I have to think it is good to change it once in a while, and the cost, including a suction gun and two new seals for the plugs was less than $30. The amsoil was about 9.50 a quart. Will let you know on mileage in a month or two, I like to check over a long time and many tanks of gas.

Steve

[JasonA]

Steve, good to hear of your good results. I dumped the factory manual transmission lube in my '07 LE after only about 20k miles. It didn't look too bad. But the Redline MT-90 made a huge improvement in shifting, especially when hot. I thought it would improve the cold shifting the most, and it did make a nice improvement, but when the weather turned warm (I changed it in December), that's when I really noticed a big difference.

As far as MPG, I don't know that it made much of a difference. I was averaging about 33-34 MPG when I got the car last summer and now I'm getting 35-36 MPG with it over the same drive cycle. But I've also changed tires, changed wheels to a much lighter wheel, did the transaxle lube, etc. So it wouldn't be fair to attribute a measurable difference to any one change because I did them all relatively close to each other (in time). But overall, I've improved about 10% since I got it.

[wireman134]

hey how is the mileage?

[steve-wis]

Sorry it took a while to get back here. Mileage didn't seem to change much at all. I really do notice that is is shifting much smoother tho.

Steve