Tom

                I gather that the decision has to do a lot with how much power you  
have in your

Vanagon & how you use it. I've put a bit over 70000mi's on my 90Westy  
since I acquired it

in Jun08 & the majority of those with a Canoe on the roof & some with  
a RaftTrailer behind

& the last 40000 of which have been with an EJ25 below deck. I  
generally try to drive @ or

slightly (5%) over the speed limit when terrain & winds allow so I  
feel that I am asking the

tranny to do a bunch of work. I ran AmsOil 75w-90 for 37000mi, RedLine  
75w-90 for 15000

& am now using Valvoline 75w-90 SynPower. The Valvo' is a GL5 & it  
does have Sulfur in it

so before I switched to it I contacted Valvoline & told them what my  
application was & was

assured that there would be no negative results from using it in my  
VanagonTranny as the

Sulfur that they use is not damaging to YellowMetals. Since it was  
many miles back, I don't

remember much about the AmsOil as far as Noise&Shifts go but the  
Valvoline is very quite &

shifts flawlessly no matter what the temperature ( never yet below  
10�F ~ I missed a -7� test

here on 3Feb11 just a week before the change from R'L' to Valvo ).  
With the RedLine the 1st

few shifts on a "cold" or "cool" start had to be done cautiously to  
avoid a slight grind.

        Bottom line is that Valvo' seems to be doing the job very nicely and  
I have not, in the

past, let the price on a product have an influence on my decisions & I  
don't adhere to the old

premise that you get what you pay for ( a Timex will give you pretty  
much the same T'O'D' as

a Rolex ) ~ the fact that the Valvo is considerably cheaper than Ams  
or R'L' & others is just

FrostingOnTheCake for me.

        These are simply my experiences & I'm no expert so continue to do  
your own research.

                                                        ORR ~ DeanB

On 29 Aug , 2012, at 7:00 AM, Tom Carchrae wrote:

> I have to ask just how bad is it to use the much more commonly  
> available
> SAE 80W-90 in there?  Or in other words, what is the benefit of these
> harder-to-find oils?
>
> Easier shifting, ok, got that.  Cooler temperatures?  Not clear if  
> there is
> any benefit from these alternatives - or is there?  Will they make the
> transmission last another 200k?  Should I throw the giant jug of  
> 80W-90
> away or use it to flush the transmission?
>
> Mostly I'm interested in knowing why this is a big deal.  It certainly
> seems important to some - I just want in on why.  Is it just you  
> want the
> best of the best, or is it really that the common oil is crap.  What  
> do I
> get from better oil?
>
> Thanks for any illumination.
>
> Tom