Changing out the gear oil in a 96 Jetta GL w/ 5spd...

Do check to make sure that it requires/uses 75W90... Many small car transmissions use either engine oil (30W) or ATF for lubricant, not gear oil. Gear oil is usually only found in heavy duty transmissions that usually don't have syncros...

No. It needs 75W90, and it needs GL-4 gear oil, not GL-5. Try Redline MT-90.

Gear oil is found in transmissions made by manufacturers that won't sacrifice long-term reliability for a couple extra fractions of a mpg -- in my opinion, of course.

AFAIK there are no online service manuals for Volkswagens (or any other vehicle manufacturer for that matter). Bentley sells excellent service manuals for various VW, Audi, etc. vehicles. They are priced at about $50 or less. No other service manual is as good.

many of the bentleys are offered in CD format too for your computer, so it's semi-online. however i've heard they sometimes are harder to navigate in CD format.

hmmm FYI alldata

I have some new but obsolete Popular Science auto repair manuals on CD. When I tried to activate one I couldn't but alldata gave me a 1 year subscription to their online repair manual on my vehicle. I might try to activate another to see if I can get another year. ;-)

I usually buy a Bentley paper or a CD manual from amazon.com or ebay.com . I might have a cheap Haynes manual if you just want some interesting reading. Might even help you do one repair! lol

later, dave (One out of many daves)

Suppose so. But I can't imagine doing any maintenance or repairs while flipping through a CD. Nothing more convenient than a paper manual sitting on the workbench or on the fender. On the other hand, selected pages from the CD could be printed out.

True (printing out). I guess the thought is that you could have a cheap (and old) laptop in your garage while doing repairs, especially with a VW because people that do a lot of their own repairs on a newer VW might also have VAG-COM running on a laptop in their garage...so why not have the Bentley on a CD too...?

I'm thinking about doing that myself (putting a laptop in my garage). Not only the Bentley CD & VAG-COM, but with a wireless hookup to the laptop, many helpful online sources would also be available.

Thanks for the information. I already have a couple quarts of MT90, extra I had purchased for my car.

Now, can anyone answer my other questions or perhaps suggest a site where I may find the rest of the info I need?

Thanks!

"Brian Running" wrote: > > Do check to make sure that it requires/uses 75W90... Many > small car > > transmissions use either engine oil (30W) or ATF for > lubricant, not > > gear oil. Gear oil is usually only found in heavy duty > transmissions > > that usually don't have syncros... > > No. It needs 75W90, and it needs GL-4 gear oil, not GL-5. > Try Redline > MT-90. > > Gear oil is found in transmissions made by manufacturers that > won't > sacrifice long-term reliability for a couple extra fractions > of a mpg -- > in my opinion, of course.

I wasn?t expecting an: official, free, online or downloadable manual. They?re available all over the place for a large number of cars... I just can?t find anything for a VW. I presume they?re much more agressive about not allowing their service info being shared freely than other manufacturers. Toyota, Honda, Chevy and Ford... I?ve found complete online versions of service manuals for car models made by those four manufacturers just using Google.

At anyrate, that?s all academic. The only info I need at this point is the location of the fill plug and the quantity required. Does anyone know?

Thanks

"Papa" wrote: > AFAIK there are no online service manuals for Volkswagens (or > any other > vehicle manufacturer for that matter). Bentley sells excellent > service > manuals for various VW, Audi, etc. vehicles. They are priced > at about $50 or > less. No other service manual is as good.

Does anyone know the volume required?

"Matt B." wrote: > "Papa" wrote in message > news:9MHOg.8149$v% snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net... > > Suppose so. But I can't imagine doing any maintenance or > repairs while > > flipping through a CD. Nothing more convenient than a paper > manual sitting > > on the workbench or on the fender. On the other hand, > selected pages from > > the CD could be printed out. > > True (printing out). I guess the thought is that you could > have a cheap > (and old) laptop in your garage while doing repairs, > especially with a VW > because people that do a lot of their own repairs on a newer > VW might also > have VAG-COM running on a laptop in their garage...so why not > have the > Bentley on a CD too...?

DO NOT use ATF in your manual tranny.

You will need a 17mm Alen to take out the plug on the bottom of the tranny to drain it. Then you are supposed to fill the case from the side with about 2L of gear oil/manual trans fluid. I've found that if I open up the hole where the spedo cable connects into the top of the tranny....I can dump in 2L of the stuff and call it a day.

GL

Never changed the oil in my '97, but I've done it with my '85 and '01, they were both slightly different, and I don't know whne the change was made. The drain plug is the same in all of them -- it's large, allen-head plug on the bottom of the transmission case, you can't miss it, it's the only thing there that has the 17mm, allen head. The fill plug is an identical allen-head plug, up on the side of the transmission case, towards the front of the car -- again, it's the only thing that looks like it on the front of the tranny, you can't miss it. Here's the difference between the '85 and the '01, and which I can't tell you about your '96 -- in the '85 you put in oil through the fill plug until it was up to the level of the edge of the fill hole, then you put the plug back in, removed the speedometer cable on the top of the tranny and added a certain amount more -- can't remember how much, but it wasn't much. On the '01, you fill to the edge of the filler hole, and that's it, no additional amount. Takes 2 liters, so you need 3 quarts of MT-90.

I've found that it's damn near impossible to get all of the old oil to drain, and it never takes the full 2 liters to re-fill. If you don't use the edge of the fill hole as a guide, but merely dump in 2 liters, you will be overfilling the tranny.