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Manual gearboxes last forever unless you really abuse the sychromesh cluches. Auto boxes nearly as long if you keep the oil and filters clean. What really suprises me is the longevity of the final drive gears and differentials.
if it's a VW 5-speed, it won't last forever. 2nd gear will grind. or reverse will fail. or the pinion seals will leak. or the rivets on the diff will loosen or break. (it was not their masterpiece design).
but most manuals, driven sensibly, should easily last the life of the car.
Yeah, the clutch and the hydralics that run it are the failure points. After a manual transmission gets notchy you can switch to a good synthetic like Redline. That helps.
I look at like this. Yeah the clutch might wear out. But what a simple thing to replace and understand how it works. Have you ever looked at the cutaways for an auto? Holy cow what is going on in there!
if it's a VW 5-speed, it won't last forever. 2nd gear will grind. or reverse will fail. or the pinion seals will leak. or the rivets on the diff will loosen or break. (it was not their masterpiece design).
I've driven two VW 5-speeds to 280,000 (10 years old) and 195,000 (9 years old) miles respectively and had no transmission problems whatsoever.
I've been around alot of vw's and seen alot of 5 speed problems. Can't recall the trans codes at the moment, but I had then all memorized and could tell you which had which problems. The mk3 8v cars usually had the reverse problems, vr6, 16v, and mk2 8v's normally had the 2nd gear syncro grinds.
What generally kills a manual transmission is that a seal leaks, owner ignores that, lets all the lube leak out, then burns out a bearing, generally.
The VW 5-speed is not exactly as robust as the old GM M-22 "Rock-Crusher". The 5th gear gears are physically up high in the trans, so will suffer lube problems if you don't keep after the lube level. The main output gear is rivited to its' shaft so won't tolerate drag-style starts, or just ham-handed, rough shifting. I have racked up over 110K miles on my 'rocco with 5-speed, but I am not rough with it and use Redline MTL lube, expensive but I think worth it's price.
After a lot of driving and shifting, you may need to replace the syncronizers in a manual gearbox, and while it's apart for that generally you'll replace most/all the bearings. But the gears and the case itself will last, I dunno, a million or more miles?
Oh that's right, I forgot about the 5th gear oil (er, lack of) problem. Actually the 2Y trans I was going to replace my brother's with (his had a blown reverse) had a crunched 5th from oil starvation. We took the top housing off to replace 5th and do the swap, but it was crunched so bad the broken teeth and bearings had fallen into the main housing... and I went shopping for another trans.
Actually the modern auto transmission is more durable than the manual if taken care fo. As a manual tranmission is manually shifted the gears geta wrokout becasue of human aren't evr prefect. When I was a teenager I always had a manuakl and rebuid them myself as they are simple.The of course there is the clutches and throwout bearings.In fact unless you buy a specific heavyduty trucktype manuals are not recommended for much towing of anything by manufacturers.last manual I had was for a jeep CJ7 and I rebuilkt it three times in 12 years becuase of gear wear. I can't ven recall how amny clutches in all. Its the fact that they are simple that makes them wroth while at all and the control in certain circumstances. For the average modern car I prefer a automatic with teh proper care. Most problems in autoamtic can be traced to mnot changing fluid enough really.
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