[200q20v] Trans oil

[C1J1Miller at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/11/00 6:48:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
75377.3445 at compuserve.com writes:

> Why guys?
>  
>  I've got to ask why the need to replace perfectly good Audi OE sythetic GL4
>  with anything else.  I don't mean never change it but why to something
>  else?
>  
>  As someone who just had his 172k mile tranny apart, looked at gears, looked
>  at bearings, yeah one was somewhat apart, but I saw no wear to speak of. 
>  No I didn't mic. any parts this was all visual.  I just can't see how
>  another oil will do better.  I'd bet very very few of you have had your
>  trannys apart but I'd bet you'd find what I did.
>  
>  I'd admit that that maybe the newest Redline is a great product and maybe
>  passes newer more stringent tests but...............
>  
>   I'd say there is nothing wrong with what Audi put in.  And if you do
>  change put in a real GL4 rating, not one that is supposed to be a GL4 and a
>  GL5.
>  
>  
>  Neil

I'll bite.
First, there is some wear always going on; you must've seen some shiny brass 
flakes in the oil.
Second, any oil has certain additives that wear out with heat and age.
Third, the oil sold by Audi today is likely very different from the factory 
fill back in '90 when our trannies were built.  Funny how Audi uses one part 
number for any manual tranny oil... so, has every audi manual transmission 
from the first quattro to today required the same stuff, even through 
different tranny manufacturers?  So, it's probably a synthetic made by 
febi/bilstein or the like.

I've used the redline before.  On my old 4kq, second gear was very balky; 
changed first to synthoil; no change.  Put in new audi fluid; no change.  
Tried redline (next step was the used tranny) and it went back to like new; 
worked great for another 80k miles.
Chris