Crap! Dealer gave me wrong fluid!
 

Oh, darn....

After studying the Pelican tech article on changing fluid and filter in my Tiptronic, I ordered 5 liter fluid, filter, o-ring and fill- and drain plugs from an official Porsche dealership.

And went to work. I was able to drain about 5 liters, so I was a little concerned whether I'd need another liter.

I changed filter, cleaned the sump and magnets, assembled it all with new gasket, and filled it until it poured out of the fill hole. Put in plug, started car, used thermometer until the pan reached just below 40 degrees C, and opened the filler and added the rest I had, but it wasn't enough. Shut the car down immideately, and prepared to go to the dealer and buy a couple of liters more in the morning.

So, here's the kicker - while I searched the web for any Mobil 1 dealers nearby, I realized that the friggin' dealer has given me the wrong fluid!

What I now have 5 liters of in my Tip is 'Mobilube 1 SHC 75W-90'. Which is a MANUAL fluid, according to the Mobil 1 web site. Also, this is the fluid for the diff, not the transmission.

My receipt also says 'Gear oil: Mobilube 1 SHC 75W-90'. I have emailed the dealer with my concern, which is WTF do I do now?

The car only ran for about 5 minutes (very hot day), and it remained in neutral. But how f*ked am I? Can I drain and fill 2-3 times with the correct fluid? Or will I need a flush? Or is it ruined already? No weird noises were heard)

I NOW know that auto fluid is usually red, not orange, but this is my first tranny oil change (changed engine oil plenty of times), and I obviously should have researched the fluid they gave me before I poured it in, but I thought I could trust the dealer to know what the sold me...

Awaiting answer from the dealer in the morning, or I'll give them a call. (They are 1,5 hours away)

Your problem now is that you can only gravity drain less than half of what is in the system. To clean the system out, you are going to need to drain all you can get out, and then refill, run, and redrain the system at least three and possibly four times to flush out the old stuff. Good luck...........

OK, thanks! I was 'hoping' for something like that.

How long do I run it for between fills and drains? Until it's 40 degrees C?

Until it warms up, then dump it.

Sorry to read this. That is not going to be cheap. Try talking to management and at least get the oil at their cost? Your're going to also change the filter a couple of more times?

I guess I'd be heading back to the dealer to find out how they're going to resolve this. Imho, you don't need to have a filter in there to do the oil flushing, And this wont take a lot of time, it's a matter of warming the oil, draining, and then replacing for about three cycles. Then replace the old filter with a new one.

I know you're a ways from the dealer, but ideally they should remediate this problem by flushing the transmission, installing a new filter and, filling with the correct fluid. This is pretty inexcusable.

You probably have proof on your invoice. You bought a filter for tiptronic, but they provided the gear lube rather than the proper ATF.

You can order the fluid from Amazon for $67.07 for 5 liters with free shipping.

https://www.amazon.com/Pentosin-Long-Life-Fully-Synthetic-1058206/dp/B00JMAQ0LW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1532365820&sr=8-2&keywords=Pentosin+ATF-1&dpID=41wz6afAyIL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

That's enough for one fill and drain. SO, to fill and drain 3 times, order 3 of them.

That's about the cheapest you are going to find it. O'Reilly's also sells it, but my guess is that they will only have 1 liter bottles in the store, but you can order the 5L size and have them delivered to the store. It's $76.99 for 5L.

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/b/pentosin-4623/chemicals---fluids-16461/maintenance-chemicals-16867/power-steering-16618/power-steering-fluid---vehicle-specific-13543/c378387a8aa0/pentosin-5-liter-transmission-fluid/1058206/4650324/2003/pontiac/aztek?q=Pentosin&pos=12

Hope this helps!

I too believe that the dealer should be responsible for this, but for the sake of argument, let me play the devils advocate for a second...

What if the product they sold you was something completely outside of the realm of reason, for argument, let's say it was 5l of water (and clearly labeled as such). If you then filled your transmission up with water and went about driving your car and have a catastrophic failure, would the dealer still be liable for selling you the water? If they INSTRUCTED you to use water, I'm sure they would be, but if they just SOLD you water, and you just dumped it in, the responsibility gets a little more murky. My point is without the explicit instruction to use a provided product, the responsibility for the outcome falls on the person who purchased and used the product.

With that being said, if the dealer was of good moral character, I'd think they would (and should) take responsibility for their error, and should have realized that the rest of the order was for an automatic and the fluid "should" have matched. Then again, what business anymore is of "good moral character"? In any event, let us know how the dealer responds...if they do take responsibility, maybe I'll consider going to them for service, although shipping to Norway would be a bit of a pain... :)

Oh, not good this happened, but at least the trans will be fine. Really tough call on who’s responsibility this is. Yes, the dealer choked, no doubt. But in the end, you didn’t double check before filling it. Keep us posted on how this turns out, and hopefully you get the goo out and new fluid in quickly!

I think MWS hit the nail on the head, doing your own maintenance person actually putting the fluids in the machine is responsible for verification that it is correct type. That said you are not the first person accidentally put in wrong fluid, at least you caught the error before it could cause major damage. If you return unopened fluid for sure dealer would exchange, maybe they will feel bad and give you a break.

Your original post didn't identify HOW you ordered the fluid. Was it an online order or across the dealer counter?

If you ordered online, absent any communication with the seller/dealer, and based upon your own research for the fluid... I'd say your mistake.

If you ordered directly across the counter, in person, and told them it was a tip, and they sold you the incorrect fluid, I'd be in their grill.

Trust no one
Measure twice cut once

Part of paying for a service is that they take on all the responsibility. As a DIYer, I have to also lean towards the "...If I pour it in then it's my problem..."
And I get that feeling that you're attacking this problem as such, asking advice how to flush out. Hopefully the dealer responds with some help but you probably dealt with a counter person. Their only stake is to cover their own ars and deny, deny, deny

Good luck and hopefully all turns out well.

By the way, I gotta think most of use DIYer have done very similar things. I know I have. And I invented new curse phrases because of it, maybe even popped a few blood vessels

Hi everyone!

Dealer came though in the best way possible. The replied to my email Monday morning, before 8am.

I ordered the fluid and parts per email, where I specified that I was going to change fluid in my Tiptronic on the '98 Boxster, I confirmed it after receiving an offer per pdf, but picked it up at the dealer myself. The person giving the first offer was on vacation, and I guess maybe someone else executed the order, and maybe yet another collected the items?

Anyway, they apologised warm heartedly, and today, per delivery van, they gave me 20 liters of Pentosin ATF-1, a new filter, gasket, drain plug and a "goodie bag" with convertible top waterproofer, leather cleaner and conditioner, inside glass cleaner, a Tequipment safety vest. And a few catalogues to urge me to purchase more. :-)

I'm very happy with this outcome. And I agree, and I have kicked myself for not checking BEFORE I filled it up. I'm normally a very cautious person, to the point of procrastination...

The dealer is Porsche Center Son, by the way, some 50 km south of Oslo. They are/were the only Ruf dealer in Norway before they became an official Porsche Center. they recently opened a 'Classic' department as well.

Great news, I love a happy ending to a story like this!

Wow! Glad to hear it all worked out!

That is excellent news and someone to keep doing business with! Where I am no way could get such good results.

Yeah, at least in my experience P-cars dealers go all in for customer service. Very cool. Now, get that car back in business!

Glad hear your outcome, and never so happy to be proven wrong. I suppose they could have offered to flush/change for you, but I guess that would have been a bit of a stretch to expect that. ;)

As a group, we usually like to take turns bashing our local 'stealerships' for various things.

It's great to hear about a stand-up dealership, go the extra mile for an owner of a 20 year old car. My local is Riverside Porsche, aka Walter's. I don't use them very often, but they have always been very courteous and helpful. Both service and parts. My car is 21 years old.

Plus, they let our PCA chapter use their conference room for meetings. And, they are always very generous with tchotskies for our raffles. Life is good. :dance:

Just to wrap this up, I drained four times before swapping filter and gasket, and filling and topping up the final time. The fluid was very clear in the last draining.

Now the gearbox is buttery smooth, smoother than I've ever experienced it! The reason I wanted to change fluid in the first place was due to a feeling of slipping (taking longer to 'get in' second gear when accelerating), and the occational rough downshift after braking, which lead me to think it was low on fluid as well.

So very happy camper now. And thanks to you all as well!

Might want to let your dealership know everything is now good. Think they would appreciate the update too.