I've unsuccessfully searched for threads about oil weight for 1.7L with only 42K mi.- what does the brain trust say? And should I consider synthetic for tranny refill? I will always recall the wonderful aroma of Gastrol R and want to add a quart occasionally for old times- I believe they now call it "aroma therapy!"

I run 20-50 in all my Porsches. I wouldn't go with synthetic in the tranny. Our synchros don't like it as much as regular stuff.

hijack alert!

we need a "what our panel of experts say about... " section in our FAQs...

where the rescpected members of our little club post what brand/ weight of oil, tranny oil, how often to do particular mainenance items(ie valve adjust), options on ignitions and such... since we get these threads so often...


this way any of us can just pull up the FAQ and see "what would Jake do" or "what does Brad think about this... " we have plenty of people that are truly experts in these cars, their engines, etc... why not have a think tank for that info?! there are plenty of people on this board who's opinion on these things can be taken as gospel truth... Jake on Engines, James on Trannys, Z on pornograhic avatars...


btw, I totally agree with anthony... I run 20-50 synthetic in the engine, but dino gear oil in the tranny... 85w-90 IIRC (I can't remember, but it was the same wt. as swepco 201, but I didn't pay the premium price for the name "swepco")

10W-40 dino oil works for me.

Since you're going to change the oil roughly every 3K - 5K mi., synthetic can get kinda pricey after a while, especially if your engine "uses" some oil. In a case like that, dino isn't all that bad.

I agree on the 20/50 for the engine. However, isn't swepco 201 sythetic gear oil? If not, why over $40 gallon? Many guys say that is the ONLY thing to use in a Porsche tranny.

Swepco is not synthetic. It's $40/gallon because it's recommened for Porsches. :-)

Next time I buy some I'll tell 'em it's for my VW-Porsche!