Thread: R380 Oil Change Intervals

I checked mine every time the engine got a service (and more often when offroading) and if it was in any way suss changed it regardless of Km's

Yep, the factory calls out 20,000km OCI's on the R380.

Even with the premium syn fluids the shift quality is deteriorating by that distance indicating the fluid is shearing/additives becoming depleted, so it's best to change it out.

IMO it's a combination of a limited fluid capacity and cast iron case (runs hot) which kills the fluid prematurely.
eg, the big gearbox in a GQ/GU Patrol can go 40,000km fairly easily, but holds near 4 litres of fluid.

Might change it sometime before the next service, as I've done some heavy towing with it lately and the rear diff needs changing anyway

Any recomendation on oil? Last time I used a Nulon fully synthetic ATF (gold bottle) thats ok?

Thanks for your replies

I once used the Nulon ATF in the gold bottle, reasonably exxy IIRC, came back to bite me in the ass, it deteriorated very quick, and the gearbox never felt the same after it.

Switched to Castrol Syntrans I believe it is, fully synthetic, quite expensive but did make the box feel a bit better after a few flushes through. Redline also has a good MTF, but even more expensive than the Castrol.

If you're going to do it regularly, or have others nearby who also need some, a 20L drum is a far better option to keep cost down a bit.

HTH,

Seano

IMO you're better off with a good syn GL4 75W-80, 75W-85 manual trans fluid or one or two 75W-90's are exceptionally good and work well too.

Castrol Syntrans 75W-85 works really well in most R380 'boxes.
Other fluids include Redline MTL, Penrite SIN Manual Trans (although I've never tried it) Valvoline Duragear 75W-85 (pretty sure JC uses that in the majority of the 'boxes he services) and a few others all work well.

My favourite fluid ATM is Motul Gear 300 in a 'box with quite a few km but be prepared for sticker shock

I used Motul once and boy did it make a difference to the car.
The whine was gone,smooth shift and until now totally forgot about it.
thanks for bringing it up. Cheers

I doubt my gearbox oil gets to 20000. I tend to change it before and after big trips, so it may only get 10-15000Km. Last lot was changed (last weekend) after the Cape trip so it only had around 12000.


Martyn