manual transmission fill

[John in CT]

last fall my 1995 5 speed had new amsoil synthetic installed. Now that cold weather is here it is extremely hard to shift when cold, warm is fine. I checked the manual today and BMW calls for ATF in my transmission, did I screw up?

Thanks in advance,

John

[BMWCCA1]

Not if you used Amsoil ATF !!

[632 Regal]

that would do it huh?
Not if you used Amsoil ATF !!

[yaofeng]

Any ATF will do.

[John B.]

I tried several synth ATFs in my 535i but the shifting was notchy compared to the regular stuff. It shifts smoothly with the cheap Napa ATF so I give it what it likes & save $$$.

[gale]

I tried several synth ATFs in my 535i but the shifting was notchy compared to the regular stuff. It shifts smoothly with the cheap Napa ATF so I give it what it likes & save $$$.

Ditto. I've tried just about everything there is. I started out with full synthetic ATF which felt like it was too slippery for the syncro's to function properly. Then I tried 70W80 GL-4 which worked ok in the summer but was too notchy when cold. After surfing the web, I tried Swepco 201 that is poplar with the Porsche gearboxes. It was very smooth for 3 seasons but took several miles on cold mornings so get smooth. Then I tried Pennzoil "Syncro-Mesh" which was the smoothest of all regardless of temps but one of the posters on the old Roadfly e28 forum e-mailed Pennzoil's tech department and they said it was specifically formulated for certain Mitsubisi manuals that had syncro issues but was not the right stuff for the Getrag trannies. I finally went with Redline MTL and it works the best of any. Most if not all current ATF's are some ratio of synthetic blends so I decided to stay away from them. If you could find the old Dexron 2 ATF, that would be worth trying.