ZF 'Sealed for life' Autobox oil change

[rswift]

So my Jaguar X350 has a 'sealed for life' ZF gearbox, which I believe is a very similar or common 6 speed auto gearbox fitted to quite a few bigger engined cars. So general consensus is that 'sealed for life' is true, if the life is 100k at 10 years, but a lot of sensible suggestions to change the oil at 60 or 70k. The oil is horrendously expensive, and draining and refilling is quite a specialist job as well.

Anyone had this done, I am not sure whether to use my usual Jaguar Indie, or find a specialist ZF gearbox service place .. I suppose better the devil you know etc. Got a feeling I'm looking at about a £300 bill . But cheaper than the £2k bill a mate got on a similar higher mileage car when the gearbox went bang.

Any experiences of this welcome

[rswift]

What they said ^^^

Definitely worth a trip to Germany, although I believe ZF have a factory in Nottingham !

I will send an email to the Germany factory though, as that does appeal, bit of a road trip/few days away.

I'll let you know !

[rswift]

I was going to compare the reply service from the British & German operation, Brits were first to reply from the email address shown on their website;


"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

[e-mail]"

[rswift]

I think my car has a plastic sump/filter (!) which is replacement only, plus oil & labour. Emailed ZF in Germany, so see what comes back ... unless have to close the email due to 'Spam"

[rswift]

I am reasonably handy with the spanners, done a least one engine swap, head gaskets, clutch etc .. but I think to do the job properly I need to get the Jag's back end quite high at the back end, which I'm not sure I can do, and then all I will have achieved is a partial oil change .. but the amount of detail I saw in the BMW gearbox service, and the prospect of a quick jaunt across europe is quite tempting. 900 mile round trip for me, on LPG :-) will cost about £100 (V8 4.2, oh yes it will at cruising speed) , and a cheap ferry crossing.

I think my Jaguar Indie, who I have been using for 10 years or so will do a fine job of an oil change, but I reckon £200 more might see a gearbox that will outlast the car (might be getting carried away here). To put into context, my previous old school 1995 X300 was sold on at 325,00 miles, on it's original gearbox oil, ATF I assume .. still running a treat, and as far as I know still is.

Progress ??

[rswift]

In my case this is purely preventative maintenance. The gearbox is not showing any problems, and has just done 70k miles. I tend to do high miles, and keep my cars for a while so figured worth doing now. I think the filter/filler on my Jag is £150 ish, plus fluid & labour.

[rswift]

Just got a reply from Germany,

Hello Russel,
Thanks for your enquiry.

Your vehicle has got a type 6 HP-26 gearbox.
We recommend a gearbox oil change at 80- to 120000Km.
The gearbox oil pan whitch includes an integratet filter is
retrofitted incl. new bolts and guide shell.
The whole job takes about 4 hours as the gearbox
can only be filled when it´s cold.
Unfortunately, we only have time as of calendar week 41
The cost would be 450,-€

So just under £400 approx, plus travel, but week 41 is October.

The approx cost in the UK of an oil/filter is about £220 plus the VAT, which I can reclaim.

Looks like I'll get it done here, as in 3 months, it could have another 6000 miles on it...

Interesting as the factory do seem to recommend an oil change on a 'sealed for life' box ....

[rswift]

o said:

What was the email address that you sent your query to?

Many thanks.

You better PM me, I got a bking on here for giving out the email address of ZF in Nottingham in case they got spammed

[rswift]

oops, didn't mean to cause offence, didn't notice who wrote the post. Please take it the humour that was intended...

[rswift]

B'stard Child said:

When I wrote the post I meant mine in humor too - hence why there was a at the end

It might have paid you to have done the same at the end instead of or in addition to the one you left there

Sorry, thought the red smilie was an embarrassed face ?, not an angry one. Don't remember seeing your smilies, but maybe I saw the post on my phone, maybe I wasn't looking properly .. but shall we move on ..

[rswift]

lol