Normally any post regarding our ZF transmission is a bad post. This time I am posting that there was actually a pleasant surprise when I had my ZF serviced today. A little background on the car, 100k miles with the original fluid and pan, always driven hard and it's been FBO the last 40k miles. When my buddy Wing at Performance Technic drained and dropped the trans pan both the fluid and pan looked great. The fluid wasn't burnt, no chucks or debris floating in it. The pan was clean with zero build up. Also when he dropped the valve body both the mech sleeve and bridge seals were in great condition, no cracks and very pliable bridge seal. Pretty much all the techs said they were impressed with the condition of the trans parts how little wear it showed. During the test drive the trans shifted great, which it did before, but now the car breaks loose when shifting into 4th. So maybe the key to keeping the trans healthy is to drive it hard all the time, engine redline is your friend possibly.

 

Good to hear, I think a lot of the problems stem from lack of regular service.

 

That's awesome! I think 535's have the same transmission as the 550i, the 6HP26. 6HP19 is only rated for 295 ft-lbs, and we all know the 535i stock is underrated at 300.

The bridge seal may have been visually in perfect condition, but it might have shrunk in size, so I would have changed it anyway.

BTW, did you or the tech check to see what color the sleeve's rubber seal was? Was it the older orange or the newer black version?

 

Wait, is that the original mechatronics sleeve that you removed in the pic you posted?

If so, it looks like BMW (i.e. ZF) changed over to the newer sleeve sometime in 2008-2009, because my early 2008 6HP26 came with the older orange version which ended up leaking.

 

Yep the mech sleeve was black and in perfect condition when it was pulled out. The trans parts in the pic were all the original parts and I had a build date of 1/09. The bridge seal was still the same size as a the new one they installed. As a preventive measure they did replace the pan, fluid, sleeve and bridge seal. In the end I was expecting some sludge in the pan but there was none at all. Needless to say I'm pretty happy since I push the car and transmission pretty hard all the time and I'm pushing around 430ft/lbs of TQ at the wheels.