Gear Oil - OEM v Millers NT, manual transmission

[colesey]

Has anyone here directly compared the OEM gear oil against the Millers NT gear oil? My car was originally delivered with what I presume from other threads to be the wrong grade of oil which made the gear change rather stiff, especially in cold weather between 1/2/3 gears.  I had it changed to Millers NT @3 years ago and, whilst much improved, some notchiness remains.

Is just a daily driver on mostly short journeys, so my preference is for good shifting from cold rather than hot temperature properties.

[Tfsi_Mike]

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[colesey]

Also is there a preferred manufacturer for the oem oil eg Febi v Swag?

[Dan_FR]

Genuine from the dealer/TPS, not a Febi or other brand equivalent

[colesey]

Genuine VAG oil now ordered plus an S3 shortshift and solid bushings for good measure. Will report back in a fortnight or so after installation.

[PatchySan]

Not a MK5 per se but my mate who has a MK7 Golf switched from VW OEM gear oil to Millers CRX 75w90 NT at 100k miles and it made his shifting a lot worse from cold, particularly in winter time as he had to do some weird techniques to get the damn thing into 1st gear! It sorts itself when it warms up later on but needless to say on his next gear oil change he'll be sticking with the genuine stuff as he never had such issues before.

[colesey]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing Patchysan. Although I never found my car to be anywhere near that bad with the Millers, it certainly was with the OEM oil supplied when new. With the Millers, the synchro is just a little slow rather than overly obstructive.

[pudding]

The VW oil is super thin. Aftermarket oils are too viscous for these gearboxes.

[colesey]

To circle back on this, Pudding was quite right about the VW OEM oil being thinner. The difference in viscosity on a 25c summer's day is already readily apparent and this bodes well for winter performance like Patchysan reported. Initial impression in combination with an S3 shifter and some solid bushings is of a quicker, more precise shift without any downsides noticed.

[pudding]

Nice   

There's a big thread on the TDI club forum I think, where the VW oil was tested in a laboratory against some popular and expensive aftermarket oils.  The VW stuff was found to be vastly superior in every way.

The only downside of such a thin oil is increased transmission noise.