If you can, change them. The front diff/tcase and rear diff assemblies don't take much oil, so a can of Diaqueen should last for a few changes. If you see how dark the oil gets after only a few thousand miles, you'll see that it would be beneficial to change them every 5k, or at the very least every other oil change.

 

well i dont see why everyone is busting his ***** about changing it....everytime i buy a car or my family does i do a complete fluid change... new or used. as for the tranfercase and tranny...i would recomend to anyone change that as soon as you want...my friend has 14k miles on his 03...very well taken care of...and we changed his tranny and diff fluid immediately after he got his 37R kit...the fluid literally came out like yogurt... we called mitsu and they said..."yeah, we have had a few calls about that...not sure what that is all about"

so my advice is to change it immediately and know that you are good to go.

as for changing the oil from 10W-30 to 50....i have no idea why you did that

 

Ok i will have to get on it next week i need to get time on tue to go get the stuff from the dealer to change the oil's

I wonder why the EVO kills the oil so much worse the the DSM does

I mean the rear diff in my DSM always looks good even if i go 30k+ on it.

 

Hey, I don't know if you did or not but make sure that you remove the drain cap off your oil pan along with the drain hole plug that the used oil goes down. If you don't... the used oil won't go down into the oil pan as quickly. It's the same concept as the breather vent on a gas can. I don't know if you did this or not... but I just figured you did since I noted that you said that oil went all over the place when you removed the engine drain plug.

Did you do this or not on your drain pan? Just curious.

 

Better safe than sorry with the tranny and diffs...change it early, get all the break-in metal shavings out of there and then go with the regularly scheduled intervals. Unless you track the car and need to do it more often. I've only got 2,000 on my new IX and I changed the oil at 1,200 miles and will change out the tranny/diffs this weekend. Going all Redline fluids.

 

when i had mine changed at 15k, there was almost no build up and the fluids were clean

 

Better to change fluids too often than not enough. A box of bottles and some elbow grease are cheap compared to the cost of driveline components.

I'm surprised a lot of you have gone so long before your first driveline fluid change. You don't know what may have made it in there during manufacturing. And the whole idea of break-in is to actually wear the parts.

When I got my T/A, I changed the engine oil at 500, and the whole driveline at 1500. I'll probably do the same with the X.

 

is it safe to use 0-50? only used 10-30 like factory(mobil)
dont know what those numbers are.

 

i use 15-50 mobil 1 here in SoCal....cause it get hot as ***** in the summer.

 

ive been running 15w-50 in my eclipse, VIII and about to do the first change on my IX with the 15w-50. Haven't seen an issue yet

 

The basics: Viscosity is the measure of how thick a liquid is. Oils have a higher viscosity than water (they flow slower). A higher viscosity oil helps keep moving parts apart, but too high and your oil system may have trouble pumping it and the oil will have trouble flowing into the smaller crevices that it needs to lubricate evenly.

Regular un-enhanced oils are rated by their viscoity, the 'weight'. This is the W number. 10W- 5W- etc. (For the record, W stands for Winter, not weight. The number is the viscosity of the oil at 0C [32F]. ) Multi-viscosity Oils have two numbers (i.e. 10W30).

Now, as oils heat up, their viscosity goes down. A motor oil that will flow properly for your engine when cold will be useless at operating temp. So they add long molecules called polymers that are all bunched up when cold, but unwind when hot. That increases the viscosity.

So, the second number in 10W30 is the equivalent viscosity at 100C [212F]. So a 10W30 oil at 100C is the same viscosity as a 30W oil at 100C.

The balance you need is an oil that's thin enough to flow properly when the engine is cold, but thick enough at operating temps to maintain the needed viscosity.

EDIT: Forgot to mention. There's a lot ofargument about the really diverse multi-viscosity oils (i.e. 0W50). A lot of people think the longer polymer chains needed to get a spread like that can be broken easier, so you need to change it more often in high-load applications.

 

^ good describtion.

here is a paragraph from Mobil site:

"Mobil 1 Extended Performance oils are available in a wide range of viscosities. The 5W-20 and 5W-30 viscosities are recommended viscosity grades for newer vehicles. The 10W-30 viscosity provides excellent all-season performance and protection. Mobil 1 Extended Performance 15W-50 is formulated to provide outstanding engine protection for high performance engines and for consumers who want a higher viscosity oil and higher anti-wear performance ( ZDDP) than typically required by modern vehicles."

 

well, how cold does it get in Wisconsin?
i mean, in the winter u might want to use a lower temp oil......for those cold starts.
to minimize the dry cranking.

 

Getting ready to change mine for the first time in a few days... but the dealer wanted $16 for the oil filter? WTF!

 

Yes, I removed the oil filler cap prior to loosening the drain bolt. However, the spill was due to the small inlet on my cheap oil pan container. It simply overflowed because of the rate the oil was draining out of the pan. Lesson learned: buy a better designed oil collector.