News from the bearing front

[Aidan]

VW don't you love them, design the gearbox around special unique bearings and then in line with your 15 year aftermarket policy allow them to go obsolete.....


now most of the big ones are readily available oem and cheaper than vw anyway but the little ones, the really special ones, well they were mostly made by/for INA and I've managed to secure supplies of them but they have increased in price quite a bit, the latest one to go is in every gearbox four speed, five or syncro and it has tripled in price, and the next delivery will be three weeks (this is while they put them through a printing machine and overprint the vw audi logo and part numbers with xxxxxx ffs), and these are the remnants that were on the shelf in germany. I don't expect that these will ever be remade, and one of them there's less than 60 left I believe, though I have heard of another source of old stock ones in the uk, which hopefully will be able to obtain, but they aren't any cheaper.

I've got 5 2nd gear bearings left, original, but then these nylon caged needle sets can be stripped, cage cleaned and reneedled , I'm buying in the necessary needle rollers to do this, lots of different sizes of course but the weird steel ones when they are gone they are gone. G gear hasn't gone yet, but I reckon that will be the next one to go, and reverse is still on b/o and there's 6 left here.

I'd recommend regular oil changes, 3 years, 20-30,000 miles, more often in hard use/extreme temps.

[Titus A Duxass]

I'd recommend regular oil changes, 3 years, 20-30,000 miles

- Oh "pooh", I haven't changed the gearbox oil since ownership (7 years).
It has a full service history up to 250,000 kms (all be VW Werkshops, does that mean that the oil will have been changed?

[Mudlark]

Almost certainly not; unless you have evidence to the contrary i would assume not and do it anyway; its not that difficult or expensive to do yourself; and you will get to see any telltale swarf or 'bits' on your magnetic plug.

[toomanytoys]

And I reckon some people were wondering about my paranoid ramblings on "if your box is noisey/got problems, dont keep driving it" threads...

There was a reason and now its going to get bloody difficult to keep these on the road.. the next 5 years will see some big changes....