delayed improvement from gear oil change?

londonTiger

I did two drain and fills on my gearbox, a weekend apart, in feb 2013.

Although there was an improvement back then, it still felt like the gears were a bit sticky. Mk4 golfs are known for sticky gears inbetween 1 and 2. It's not an easy transtition, it feels like in the midway point the gears or lever catches on something.

Anyway, recently the gear changes have become a lot smoother. I'm not sure if it was connected but it felt different when I did a full 1Ltr brake fluid bleed (which shares brake fluid with clutch slave).

Was wondering whether it was just a delayed response from the gear oil change or whether the gear shifting improvement is related to clutch bleeding?

Limey

Could well have been that the clutch hydraulics had lost some efficiency and the fresh fluid restored this. Maybe the piston on the slave cylinder was not disengaging the clutch quite fully.:think:

I also found that when I changed the gear oil on my current car it took a while for the improvement to be felt, but on others I've done the improvement was pretty much instantaneous.

Weird_Nev

Could you have bled a bubble out of the clutch line inadvertently?

No way would a gearbox oil change have delayed effect like that. It feels as good as it's going to with new oil, and degrades from there.

TrickyWicky

Sounds more like the clutch fluid change was the needed treatment. In 1st or 2nd gear the torque from the engine is greater so if you've not got a good clutch then you'll struggle to shift the gear shift properly.

You may of just solved a big headache for other golf owners

Seriously though yes gearbox fluid can also take a while to have a refreshing effect on the box generally though I doubt that was your issue in this case.

I did a fluid change on my autobox a year or two back which was clearly knackered. A couple of weeks later it started to feel like a rejuvenated gearbox. It can take a while for the fresh fluid to work around and dilue older fluids and get old lumps of sludge moving etc.