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Gearbox Oil Change

Apparently the Porsche 944 has a characteristic whine to the rear mounted gearbox in the transaxle. I've always wondered if an oil change in the gearbox would make a difference to mine. Searching through my service history didn't reveal any receipts for gear box oil changes in the last 10 years - which was quite disturbing.

The chaps at Opie Oils have an extensive range of oils on offer, plus a 10% discount for members of the various forums/clubs on top of their already very good prices, and if you contact them they'll recommend a good oil for your car. I selected a Castrol TAF-X for manual gearboxes and set about getting ready to do the oil change. (This blog post gave me the confidence to do this myself - thanks!)

On the left of the gearbox under the back of the car you'll find two 17mm hex bolts. The top is the filler access and the bottom the drain plug. You don't need to raise the car like I did but it makes access a little easier. As you can see from the above pic I still managed to spill some oil - that stuff shoots out when the drain plug is removed so beware where you position your pan. Before starting the process I took the car for a short drive to warm up the gearbox oil, and I made a mental note of the whiney noise.
To start, I removed the top plug first as recommended by Clark's Garage - if that one won't budge then you'll need to get a garage to remove it and your DIY job will be short lived. Thankfully mine moved after a couple attempts with the breaker bar, and so did the bottom plug. Replace the bottom plug before refilling!

This 944's old gearbox oil certainly looked like Guiness and not the light ale that it was about to be replaced with. There's satisfaction in that already.

To make refilling easier I used a tube that ran from the left NS wheel arch over the exhaust to the filler hole. In retrospect I should have warmed the fresh oil to aid the flow down the tube. Perhaps a tub of hot water for the 1L bottles to stand in would have been a good idea.

After I'd decanted 2L of oil into the gear box I removed the tube to check the oil level before inserting the extended nozzle of the third bottle of oil directly into the filler hole - just to see if it worked - it did, very well. There's enough space between the exhaust and the back of the gearbox for the narrow bottle. It took about another half litre of oil before it started to gently overflow from the filler hole. I then reinserted the top hex bolt. Job done!

Now for the test drive.

It didn't take too long to realise how much of a HUGE difference this new oil had made to my gearbox. The whining was down significantly, it's not gone completely, but it's now not the intrusive and worrying whine it was before. Not by a long shot.

If you haven't done this simple gearbox oil refresh then I can't recommend it enough.
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Comments

  1. manoj singh11 April 2013 at 12:52

    Here we can get the full knowledge of music player, so before buy any product we should read this blog and thank you for sharing this amazingly knowledge.Gearbox

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown26 May 2014 at 03:58

    Thanks a lot for this post. Good to see an average joe and not a professional mechanic show us it can be done.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clothing Store25 June 2021 at 14:37

    As long as the oil pressure is greater than the hydrogen gas pressure, a seal will be formed confining the gas. For best synthetic oil you should be updated

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dawood Ibrahim3 January 2022 at 09:02

    Thanks a lot for this post. Great post i Must say. Buy industrial oil suppliers at best prices in Zimbabwe

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alex PS19 November 2025 at 10:11

    This collision repair shop in Hollywood offers exactly the kind of professional service drivers need after an accident. The team seems highly skilled, and the attention to detail in both structural and cosmetic repairs is impressive. Customers can feel confident trusting their vehicles here. collision repair shop in Hollywood

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