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Old 04-17-2015, 07:48 AM   #4
flaps10
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Tacoma
Posts: 430
If you do enough searching about the "lifetime" fluid concept you'll find out what I did. European manufacturers are able to offset the (claimed) total "carbon foot print" of their cars by not calling for petroleum based servicing.

That way they get away with lower gas mileage, dirty pipes, etc. It's pathetic. "Lifetime" means until it gets past warranty.

We have a VW Touareg (cousin to the Cayenne) with automatic transmission. With any other automatic transmission you are an idiot to go more than 30k miles between fluid changes, especially if you tow something (and the Touareg can pull 7700 pounds).

When it started hard shifting between 4 and 5 I did some research and it was the valve body (the other "fixes", mostly software updates are not long term fixes). The guts of the valve body eventually get plugged up with goo and it starts hard shifting, initially in the 4-5 shift.

Dealer? "$8-11K for a transmission please". F that. A company back east sells an updated valve body for $695, exchange. Done.

Now about that fluid. Dealer charges $28/quart and it takes about 2 gallons. I couldn't find anything compatible with the mystery German stuff until I discovered that the transmission is an Aisin (Japanese) contraption. Even that was a bit challenging but eventually I was able to find a Valvoline product that was going to be absolutely compatible. I think it was $30 all up.

Off topic, automatic transmission are a hoot. If you buy a BMW you might have a GM transmission. If you buy a Ford Truck it might have a german ZF transmission (mine did). If you buy a VW it has a japanese transmission. Damn I loathe automatics.
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