Still not got round to ATF trick yet - but will do. Stick to a good quality 10w40 oil, and you'll be fine. My favourite? Total Quartz semi synthetic
I used Fuchs 15W40. My 16v was drinking the Castrol away, and smokin' like a b*tch. I'm hoping the slightly thicker oil stops this. I still have some ATF leftover, so I'll give it another go in 6months or so.
G*y. I can hear my tappets already. They're probably worn more than anything. Another dose of ATF might do then trick in 6months time.
Tried the ATF trick and my tappets were still noisy, so i replaced them with new ones from GSF. Guess what!!! Still F'ing noisy?? What is going on? Please, anyone got any ideas. She's an 87 GTi - Dan
What grade of oil are you using? It might also be that your oil pump is getting a bit tired and not pumping them up properly... although new ones can take a fair bit of time to pump up (maybe 20 mins at fast idle).
I used Synta oil and the genuine vw filter. She's been run for at least 500 miles now so should have pumped up. Is it worth checking the oil pickup in the sump? Is there any way I can check if the pump is failing, or shall I just change it anyway?
I kind of forgot I put ATF in my VR6 around 3 months ago, it's still in there now ! Err, time for an oil change me thinks.
Just preparing myself to do this now, used some of the oil flush just before the last hardcore service and didn't seem to do a fat lot, oil was proper manky! Since that i've done the water up the vac line trick a few times too any my oil is manky again after 6k with the semi synthetic oil in. Going to go buy some cheapo halfords ATF this week. Halfords GM6137M DII Fluid 1L auto transmission fluid for 5.99 looks like my victim, i'll run it in the car for about 200 miles as my car only does extremely short journeys all the time. Got another new oil filter, a cunning magnetic sump plug and some "S/S TO 521770061 S/S TO 521770061 Fully synthetic" oil from ECP for 41.72. God knows what that oil is but it must be good! Hopefully this will stop the engine sounding like it's got a bag of spanners inside it. Looking forward to hearing the results!
I did this on my 160k old 8v, no adverse effects except it cleaned out all the crap holding my oil cooler together, so a week later I got oil in my coolant. Highly recoomend you change the oil cooler at the same time as dropping the oil after a flush
Brought Fuchs Titan XTR 10w/40 Oil 5 litres for 10.70 at GSF. With an oil filter and new sump plug washer total was 16.63 inc Vat. I was pretty amazed at the oil cost, synta silver was about 18 for 5L last oil change. My mk3 2L drinks oil, l'll see how it gets on with the Fuchs..
i bought the fuchs stuff for my 24v last time, seems ok on it . was nearly knocked off my feet by the price of the PD oil for the lupo....28 for 5 litres...plus vat.
I bought 2L of ATF in the end yesterday, put the first litre straight in because my oil was rather low I'll drain some oil, and pop the next lot in next week and run it for a couple of hundred miles
Well i've just spent 40 quid on fully synthetic oil so i'm hoping it'll last a fair bit longer if i do the water trick and ATF trick a few times before the oil change
40 on fully synth? we only have a 4.3litre sump... what did you get?! i wouldnt run it with 2L of ATF in there and not for 200 miles. the ATF will be trying to clean the old oil (esp after the water trick). run a litre now for a hundred miles or so... change it, 7k later, do the ATF thing again... it wont have as much cleaning to do with the newer oil and will be able to clean the engine more.
Buy some 5 oil to run with the second lot of ATF? You could even not bother changing the filter, if you want to save a few .
