Audi 01E gearbox oil and B5 S4 rear diff oil

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Nov 15, 2021
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Hello and good day fellow enthusiasts,

I have a 2001.5 Audi S4 that I'm getting ready to do some major maintenance on. I've came across threads on multiple platforms that indicate the gearbox should have a GL4 spec oil and not to use GL5 since it has phosphorus and phosphorus eats yellow metals.

I've read that the rear diff can use the GL5 spec oils.

Initially, I leaned towards redline 75w80 (I believe it's called MTL) but have read lots of unhappy feedback with notchy shifting in the colder months. I've came across the recommendations of motul gear 300 75w90 for trans and rear diff, but a few unhappy remarks about notchy shifting.

I'm thinking of maybe OE fluid in the gearbox and motul gear 300 75w90 in the rear diff?

Does anyone have experience with the 01E and the B5 S4's rear diff to provide feedback?

Thank you in advance for your time and support!
 
As a rule most manualt transmissions and transaxles should have GL4, GL5 will eat syncros. You mention MTL, i love that oil. I had that oil in 3000GT VR4, CRX VTi and in my current S60. It improved shifting in my cars therefore i love it, but i never tried it in really cold weather though. Shifting feel is kinda a bit personal thing and preference.
Don`t S4 have LSD diff? If so you might need to use LSD compliant diff oil, something to think about.
 
Redline says to use MT-90 75W90 GL-4 GEAR OIL in the manual transmission, and the rear differential.
 
I had a B6 6sp A4 and I have redline MT-90 in there and it sucked in cold weather! I ended up going back to OEM. As for diffs, I used Amsoil front and rear in my S4 (I have a 2001) but they were different formulations. I forget which ones. I also used Amsoil in my A4 diffs and had no issues.
 
Thank you everyone for taking the time to provide your feedback. I spoke to some guys who have extensive knowledge on the B5 platform and they recommended motul gear 300 75w-90.

I'll be ordering this stuff closer to the end of the month. Until then, I'll check here for other potential choices.
 
if you plan on any cold weather driving, go with Ravenol 75W. it's what I used in my 2005 allroad. I'm local to Blauparts so I can do pickup, their shipping can be a deal breaker. I went to them asking for the 75W-90 and they recommended the 75W.


Oh, and pictures are required for any further advice!
 
if you plan on any cold weather driving, go with Ravenol 75W. it's what I used in my 2005 allroad. I'm local to Blauparts so I can do pickup, their shipping can be a deal breaker. I went to them asking for the 75W-90 and they recommended the 75W.


Oh, and pictures are required for any further advice!
Thanks for chiming in! I saw on blauparts that they recommended Ravenol MTF2 for the S4.

I recently used a bunch of Ravenol fluids in my 4M Q7 for the drivetrain service. Used some of their AWD-TOR for the transfer case and 75w-90 VSG for the front and rear diff. Ended up doing OE fluid, better known as lifeguard 8 for the ZF trans.

Tried uploading a photo of the B5 but i keep getting an error message about the file size being too large. I'll need to resize it and try to repost.
 
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