A8CT

I'm changing the fluid/filter on my '05 with 100k, no transmission service done previously. I called ZF and gave them all the information off the transmission plate. BTW, it's on the bottom, looking straight up right around where the two belly pans join together.

I drained some fluid out to check the color and it's gold. According to ZF he thought it should be blue. I put it in a glass jar to confirm and he told me there's really no mistaking the two colors, let that be the deciding factor. A couple of comments from ZF over the course of two calls:

1) There's no reason not to do a fluid/filter change regardless of the mileage. 90% of the issues attributed to post fluid change failure are due to improper refilling. I tend to believe that. How many posts have you read that went along the lines of.... "just had the transmission service done and they only added 4 (or 5) liters".

2) I have heard the "hoot" about 4 times over the course of 4k miles. I talked about swithing to the "green" fluid and he told me that was done purely to "eliminate the noise, there is zero affect on the durability of the tranmission". "If it doesn't bother you, stick with the gold fluid and don't worry about getting a reflash done".

So, that's what I'm doing. If you've done this on a D2 before, it's nearly identical except for removing the a wiring bracket on the front part of the pan.

While it's on the lift, I'm going to replace the upper CA bushings. I've never replaced just the bushing, always done the entire arm. I haven't ready about any D3 pinch bolt issues so hopefully they come right out.

MP4.2+6.0

plain and simple, nothing in Audi's documentation says they were putting blue fluid (the W12 stuff) in 4.2's in 2005 as original fill, nor what Audi's fluid spec's said in the timeframe. The TSB recommending blue fluid and a reflash came a fair amount later as a fix for 4.2's already in the field with the hoot. Thus unless yours both had a hoot related fluid change AND Audi shared its service database w/ ZF at the VIN (and perhaps tranny number level...hard to believe that), their statement to you yours should have blue fluid in it just doesn't hang together for me. I think late on Audi may have changed the spec in its fluid spec tables (late in the D3 model run), but that didn't change what went into the trannies to start with for most of the production run.

Yes, meanwhile makes sense on upper control arms.

bmwm750

I just got done doing this on my 06 4.2 and despite ZF telling me mine should have had factory fill of the blue stuff, mine was gold. Audi supersedes all of the fluids to the green LifeGuard 8 now, but to change over, you have to do at least 2 drain and fills to get all of the old gold (LifeGuard 6) fluid out, and then have the dealer update your software. I went through about 20 quarts of the stuff.

You can get the older LifeGuard 6 fluid directly off the net, and if you did it this way, you could only do one drain and fill and forego the new software.

A8CT

the latter is exactly what I'm doing. I was surprised that '05 potentially had blue, I think it's a mistake in the documentation from Audi.

I rec'd a ZF filter but it didn't come with a gasket and nobody has one in stock. So, I'm using "Great Stuff" RTV which really is as good as the name implies.

Regarding the filter, mine didn't feel as tight as the one that came out. This style filter doesn't have any fasteners like the 5 speed, it's only friction fit. I called ZF and they verified that I have the correct filter and explained to me that it sits on the bottom of the pan now. The old ones were suspended.