has the manufacturers specified time been from day one or after their boxes started to go pop?

What i'm getting at is they are unlikely to admit a manufacturing\design fault when they can just blame lack of oil changes. 2004 black Vogue TD6

Dan, I think you have it.

If manufacturer's specify an oil change 60K and its not done, then its only asking for trouble - after all they developed and tested the box, so should know its limitations.

I think LR are responsible for all of the failures where an oil change has not been undertaken, and the failure is not down to fair wear and tear - as an oil change should form part of the service schedule - exactly as it does with other LR previous models. I remember and still have vehicles that had to have a transmission oil change at 24 or 48k miles.

Sealed for life is bloody joke!

i didnt think land rover reckomend an oil change on the 4.4 petrol gearbox so what would be a good mileage for them to be done as i said mines 72 thou so ill do mine anyway "RANGEISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED"
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Pretlove says , '' I want my car back "

Mines about to hit 50,000 miles and is due next service in just under 10k, so I was planning to look at getting the gearbox oil changed then. FFRR TD6 HSE
Adriatic Blue with Parchment leather.

From day one GM have said their oil must be changed every 50,000 miles, sooner if operated in arduous conditions or under heavy load (towing)

From day one ZF have said their oil must be changed every 60,000 miles, sooner if operated in arduous conditions, under heavy load (towing) or if driven hard (racing)

These gearboxes last for hundreds of thousands of miles in other cars. However LR say they don't need servicing and they fail regularly. In the last 10 years BMW have moved to this maintenance free way of thinking - however they are starting to reverse this due to the backlash. 

I was unaware of GMs and ZFs recommendation on this and to be honest shocked that LR just ignore it! FFRR TD6 HSE
Adriatic Blue with Parchment leather.

GregP wrote:

I was unaware of GMs and ZFs recommendation on this and to be honest shocked that LR just ignore it!

There is a BMW memo floating around somewhere that states it's basically acceptable for a gearbox to fail at 100K. It really is disgusting.

Initially when I looked into this I couldnt believe LR/BMW do this so I spoke to ZF who confirmed the service interval, but would not comment on "sealed for life"... 

Considering the weight of LRs vehicles it should be even more improtant. I bet a good % are used for towing as well. Disgusting is spot on! FFRR TD6 HSE
Adriatic Blue with Parchment leather.

I'm sure I read somewhere that one of them (ZF or GM cant remember) is actually rated slightly lower on the torque limit than the engine can provide.

edit:-
Found it, not sure if its correct

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/1458485-post4.html

Katash wrote:

I'm sure I read somewhere that one of them (ZF or GM cant remember) is actually rated slightly lower on the torque limit than the engine can provide.

edit:-
Found it, not sure if its correct

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/1458485-post4.html

Not sure on that as the same box is used on the 4.9l S62 (M5/Z varient of our engine. I want to see one of those in a RR! 

GregP wrote:

I was unaware of GMs and ZFs recommendation on this and to be honest shocked that LR just ignore it!

Ditto....mines the gm box right? so i need to do this asap "RANGEISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED"
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Pretlove says , '' I want my car back "

No, yours is the ZF box. 

Dan is right about the fluid changes - with the possible exception for fluid changes on an old gearbox. And disgusting is not a bad way to put it (it's 'ok' for gearboxes to pop at 100k mi because there's no BMW can get stung with repercussions at that point ).

I've done quite a bit of research on the RR boxes as well - more on the GM than the ZF as this is what I'm schlepping around with my TD6. Info's are cut and pasted from a past post below.

As far as fluid changes go, one thing I've heard from numerous rebuilders is that there is a point at which you really don't want to be changing the fluid anymore, but you can't know if you've reached that point w/o checking the fluid in the box visually (providing you have the experience to know what you are seeing) - which means draining at least some fluid. ATF has a large %age of detergents, and what apparently happens is that the fresh detergents in new fluid flush all the cr@p out of all nooks and crannies and fook the gearbox very quickly. It's obviously not possible to put a number on these cases, but the consensus seemed to be that the boxes would have lasted a significant period longer longer w/o a fluid change - not just that the boxes were already completely fooked and the change killed the remaining few 100 miles.

The other issue is torque. I've read on numerous boards myself that both the GM and the ZF boxes are underrated for the application in the RR - yet the causes of the failures are not a direct result of the torque or weight of the (heavy) RR in either case. In both cases it's primarily problems with the valve body that cause failures. In the GM's case, the torque converters are prone to dying. But this is because of a lack of pressure from the converter clutch solenoid, not because the parts are too weak.

And most of the people I spoke to said optimally the fluid change intervals should be around 50-60k KM's (35-40k Miles!).


Here is what I posted previously:

I did considerable research on this transmission and spoke to all sorts of people from Ian Ashcroft, to John Mackey, to some very competent folks at Sonnax Transmissions.

The 5l40E has some very real problems - nearly all of which are pressure related. In a nutshell, the biggest wear issues stem from wear in the valve body bores and in the torque converter clutch valve bore. It seems that, for whatever reason, the aluminum used by GM in the casting of these pieces is softer than the material used in other (older) GM transmissions. This wear leads to improper shift/lock-up pressures which in turn leads to premature wear in the rest of the transmission components (which drop particulates into the fluid and exacerbate the wear in the valve bores) and, at some point, transmission failure.

All of the people I spoke to concurred on a number of items:
-'sealed for life' is not a good thing.As the filter is on the suction side of the system, it can't be made too fine as otherwise it would cause cavitation in the pump. These means that wear causing particulates, once in the transmission fluid, are there to cause damage till removed - or transmission failure. Early, regular fluid changes are good and necessary.
- using the proper transmission fluid is vital. The valves tend to oscillate relatively rapidly in their bores and the GM engineers put considerable effort into the interaction of the materials vs. pressures vs. wear problems. Use only the recommended fluid - not all fluid is alike.
- when transmissions are rebuilt, cleanliness is vital as is checking the tolerances in the valves and the pump
- after a rebuild, changing the fluid is almost more necessary than before to reduce the likelihood of a repeat failure

Most TD6 transmissions will fail at between 80-100k miles. Some of the rebuilders I spoke to told me that they make minor modifications such as sleeving the valve bores with a harder material and for this reason, they felt that a transmission rebuilt properly was actually better than ex-factory while others stated that the best one could hope for is back to OEM-spec (with another failure in 80-100k miles). 
RRC 2Dr, RRC 4Dr,
P38, and 2 L322s
(wife thinks I'm nuts - prob right, too)

I best start saving then, I'm at 90k!!!

That said, are there any guides on prices to pay? What ever the guide prices are, I guess its many £££ Reformed

See this thread http://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic4805.html - 20L of Texaco 7045E from Watsons Oil for £66 delivered (enough to do over 3 oil changes and get rid of most of the old oil - I left about 2000 miles between changes).