How To: Reduction Gear Oil Change

[greenbaarron]

Did this about a month ago@62k miles, the mi/kwh meter has increased from 4.7 to flopping between 5.0 and 5.1. About 950 miles into the fluid change w/ Redline D6. The before estimate was determined over the course of the month preceding. The power pulled from the wall as also decreased by the same. 2011 Leaf.

[camasleaf]

I am at 82,000. I should change it. How many quartets?

[Nubo]

I am at 82,000. I should change it. How many quartets?

You'll need 2 quart bottles. Iirc, the capacity is 1.6 quarts.

[camasleaf]

I replaced the gear oil on our 2011. It was dark in color and felt less viscous than the new Redline D6. Little accumulation on the magnets. After 7 years of no car maintenance I did not realize I did not have the Allen wrench sets anymore. Gave them away to afriend years ago to unblock the garbage disposal. So after removing the tray/shield, I put the wheel back for a day. The next day I was too lazzy to remove the wheel again and did the oil change and put the tray back without jacking the car. I have long hands but I am not a slim guy. A steep driveway helped when I reached for the back bolt on the tray.

[HRTKD]

If I'm understanding this right, the gear reducer in the Leaf is analogous to a transfer case in a 4x4 truck. In my Titan I changed the transfer case fluid (plain old ATF) about every other third engine oil change. The truck was running synthetic engine oil with lab testing at each oil change. The oil change interval was 10,000 miles.

The transfer case was a sealed system but unlike the transmission had no cooling system. The oil after 30,000 miles was downright nasty.

Teflon tape can be used on the threads of the drain/fill plugs. We used that on our transfer case plugs on the trucks with no issues, but eventually I just slapped the plugs back in without any further enhancements. No leakage over 100K miles there.

I'll be doing this fluid change soon. I didn't realize it was something we could maintain so many thanks to the OP of the thread for this information. I have a couple cases of AMSOil synthetic ATF leftover from my Titan that I've been wanting to use up and a couple bottles will work fine for the Leaf.

I have pump spouts on the ATF bottle. So I don't need to use a hose from above. At least I'm hoping it will work out that way.

[powersurge]

I did this service at 48K miles..

The fluid was not nasty... It is not like a differential that turns into sludge.. It was in the brown range (from the original red).

You need to do this with the car level. There are 2 ways to do this. One, with the car lifted at 4 points (level).

- you take off the large engine compartment protector from underneath.
- you first remove the top (fill plug), and then the bottom drain plug.
- you DO NOT NEED to use Teflon tape... no good
- fill until the fluid is generously coming out of the fill hole.

Alternate way to fill - After you drain, replace the drain plug, and lower the car back to level ground...
- With a section of tubing you can refill until the extra comes out, and replace fill plug from above. There is room to squeeze your arm through the engine area to hand tighten the plug, and finish with a closed end wrench.

easy.

[Goodbar]

I checked the level per the maintenance schedule at 15k miles/2 years. I used a bunch of extensions so I didn't have to pull the belly pan.

This is what the plug looked like — should I be worried?!

[goldbrick]

I would say that is normal. If you are worried, clean the plug and check it again in a year. It will probably be much cleaner next time. It's normal for some metal to wear off the gears as they break in, that's why the plug is magnetic.

I'm more used to seeing powdery looking deposits instead of the longer shard-like metal on your plug but it could just be the magnification of the picture or maybe it's just because it's new. Or maybe if you wipe the plug the deposits are actually smaller and they just lined up in that shape due to the magnetics....

[Goodbar]

I would say that is normal. If you are worried, clean the plug and check it again in a year. It will probably be much cleaner next time. It's normal for some metal to wear off the gears as they break in, that's why the plug is magnetic.

I'm more used to seeing powdery looking deposits instead of the longer shard-like metal on your plug but it could just be the magnification of the picture or maybe it's just because it's new. Or maybe if you wipe the plug the deposits are actually smaller and they just lined up in that shape due to the magnetics....

Thanks, I'm not particularly worried. I just have no baseline. I did wipe it clean and will check it before the powertrain warranty is up

[Nubo]

I checked the level per the maintenance schedule at 15k miles/2 years. I used a bunch of extensions so I didn't have to pull the belly pan.

This is what the plug looked like — should I be worried?!
https://i.imgur.com/geSVlNQ.jpg

Looks fairly normal. Manufacturing the gear teeth perfectly polished and mated to each other would be prohibitively expensive, so it's done inside the gearbox by the driver. Most of those metal particles are from the first few thousand miles of use.

But -- the effort it takes to get the fill plug out is not all that much more than draining and re-filling. I like the idea of getting the initial wear-metals out of the case.