How much metal in transmission oil is acceptable?

[Squideatingdough]

All the below is regarding a 2014 VW Golf 1.6TDI With a CLHA start stop engine and a MWW 5 speed manual gearbox with 91000 miles on it.

So, had a grinding noise coming from my transmition when the car was moving - no noise In neutral and if driving - engage the clutch and the noise goes away, so thought it could be the throw out bearing. BUT I also had a feeling the noise may have always been there but just got loud enough to hear when the engine was actually putting power through the box - so the gears and bearing actually had some torque on them.

Split the box off last night and when spinning the outputs by hand it feels like its grinding internally, and there is probably 1-2mm of backlash if you turn it clockwise and go anticlockwise although I can't feel any play in the bearings.

Drained the oil and there was under 1L in there, and it was THIN, I mean like almost water thin oil. And towards the end quite a few bits of metal came out - no chunks or shards, but more like shavings - and enough to fill the end of a magnet easily, put a pickup magnet down inside the box and LOAD of shavings came out - so much the magnet could not pick up any more.

I can't find any info on how much oil the box should have but on my MK1 (OLD I KNOW) it's a similar size and takes 1.75L of a 75W oil so it looks like this oil may at some point have been changed for the wrong oil all together, and not had enough put in? almost looks like engine oil but I am not sure as I have only ever really worked on older cars so not sure with these modern ones with "lifetime oil" inside.

So, take a look at this photo below - is this amount of metal in the oil normal?, I didn't go hunting for this - it's just what came out of the oil so there is bound to be a lot more inside - I know you should expect some, but I think this is quite a lot?

Also, is this "lifetime" oil always thin when drained? Anyone else had similar experience?.

I am thinking to just get a new entire box from a low milage breaker and swap the lot to save the grief of trying to take it apart to inspect the internals - do you guys think that's likely a good idea? - what would you do?

[url|https://thumbsnap.com/Y6wHKZdp[/url]

[url|https://thumbsnap.com/SeL3ZSrd[/url]

[Penelope Stopit]

Yes get another box

Check manual for correct oil

[227bhp]

That's buggered. Normal is a fine dark grey paste on the plug magnet.

[Arnold Cunningham]

On the one hand, I've had some gearboxes with that much crud come out and they've still been adequately usable for a while.
The rest of your symptoms, however, say it's DOA and needs replacing.

Edited by Arnold Cunningham on Monday 10th February 10:27

[Squideatingdough]

Thanks for the replies

luckily found one on ebay that was reasonably priced with "What they say" is 50000 miles on it, gonna just swap the entire thing out.

thanks again.