95 Town Car Synthetic Differential Fluid

I am looking to hear from a town car owner who has tried and can recommend a synthetic differential fluid for my 95 TC. Did you notice any differences positive or negative with synthetic fluid?

Reply to
Rock
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Can't speak specifically about TC's but, the 8.8 rear is pretty much the same whether it be in a TC, CV, GM ot F/E series truck. They are pretty much bullett proof requiring little maintenance. They do have a propensity to leak at the pinion or axle seals around 100K or so. I have routinely replaced the gear oil with a semi synthetic although, I have never had a problem with regular gear oil in street cars. Unless you are towing or some other heavy duty application, I do not see any quantifiable financial benefit to using full synthetic other than a very slight gain in fuel economy. Most differentials will far outlast the vehicle unless they are run low on whatever oil is in there as long as it is not allowed to run low on oil because of leaky seals. If you choose to use synthetic oil, I will defer to the eminently more opinionated oil gurus of the group to gently direct you to the correct brand to correspond with the moon phase in which you plan to do the change..

Good luck

Lugnut

Reply to
lugnut

Good advice.

I remember reading in my Ranger's owner's manual an advisory about changing the rear axle lubricant. It basically said to *never* change the gear lube unless the axle had been submerged, because the original lube was of such a high quality that it was likely to be better than anything you could buy on the aftermarket, even after 100k miles.

A friend who worked for John Deere some years ago reported a similar situation, John Deere had to issue an advisory so that customers wouldn't change out the extremely expensive lubricant in one of their pieces of heavy equipment. Some farmers had acquired the laudable habit of being proactive on changing fluids, but they were unaware of the very high quality stuff that JD put in there (and it was needed due to the design of the gears involved), and were wearing out gears that would have lasted 25 years of very hard use on the original stuff, in just a couple years using garden-variety gear lube.

My take on it would be to go direct to Ford and buy whatever they sell, synthetic or not.

Reply to
Mark Olson

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