JPB,
Liang(he's a long friend of mine by the way) is quite competant in his work but not his workers. He has one workher ther quite short hair and chubby, never ask him anything especially gearbox flushes as he will tell you 'why want to flush? after flushing gearbox koyak wan you know?" duhh..
ESSO LT is not a higher spec of D3, its just a different spec due to different materials used in the more advanced and newer gearboxes. It's the additive package that resides in the ATF itself that differs as for the viscosity, it doesnt differ much and probably quite ignorant between D3 and ESSO LT. I believe D3 has got some additives will accelerate the wear of certain materials in the certain gearbox(which one exactly I can't remember) and of course ESSO LT also contain higher cleaning additives to clean the more sensitive solenoids as compared to the E36 GM boxes.
SG,
I don't really know who can do it in PJ that is quite competant (or you can try out Benson Auto as JPB went there) area but I send it to my friends shop which is quite far out of town to do due to the reason I can do it myself, just pinjam the equipments and still pay for the labour
it will take at least 14Litres and above to get it really cleaned. When I took my car from the previous owner, it took me 20litres to get it thoroughly cleaned, gosh i was wondering how long since it was flushed before. Now I just do a drop and top every 30,000-40,000km using fully synthetic Dexron III. And of course make very well sure the level is at the CORRECT level, some ppl inspect the level at the car angle either up or down which is wrong and also the ATF needs to be in operating temperature before the correct level is reached for checking. And also make sure they use the CORRECT fluid and not engine oil! coz I've seen some ppl making mistakes before in front of my eyes... D3 and ESSO LT ATF is always DARK CLEAR RED in color and and it has a nice tint or red when seen over a light source. It is never green, blue, yellow or pink..it has to be DARK RED. There are some engine oil in the market that is also red in color but not as dark so make sure you check it properly especially those shops that pour it out from the drum.
Ade,
My suggestion is...get it flushed as your box is still quite new. Keep it that way and you'll be a happy man and laughing your way to the gearbox later. You can flush now and next round to a drop and top and do another round of flushing say every 2nd drop and top, that should keep the gearbox happy. I think all E46 specs ESSO LT as ESSO LT is the equivalent of the original BMW ATF as speced by them (but please check your car's manual first, don't take my word for it) as it's equipped with the ZF 5 speeder right? The correct fluid that the gearbox will take will sure to come from the specs of either BMW themselves of ZF themselves, they will have a list of which ATF brand and grade is suitable for the gearboxes. I think I came across some other brands other than Valvoline now having the equivalent ATF such as penzoil and quakerstate. I'll try and get the ZF data sheet and post it here later...
And by the way, I don't believe in adding any form of additives into the lubricants and ATF is no exception no matter what they may claim. A lubricant is designed to have optimum amounts of additives either by cost factor or by quality factor. Any form of 3rd party additive may or may not react with the additives in the lubricants. One will never know even though one will claim that it doesn't, but how would they know? buy every single lubricant in the market and add it in and than send it for lab tests and than pay somebody to endorse it? Those counter reactions may happen and may not and if it does, it may take some time before the adverse effects show probably 100,000km later? and in the end...what happens? lifespan shortened. Our BMW machines are german engineered and I believe they are good engineering as we are paying for it and if they say that use only this fluid that is speced to their specification or that meet their specification and don't add in any additives to it, there is a reason behind it. All fluids that conforms to BMW specified lubricants do have a certificate for it from BMW to the lubricant manufacturers and I have some of it
So unless that particular lubricants says that is meets BMW spec and certified and tested by BMW, ok fine, lets see the certificate first else go ponder...
