What is worse for the 01M...city driving or highway?

Firstly, not looking to go to stick for reasons that are out of scope.

Is it cruising on the highway that kills the trans or is it city driving?

It can serve either purpose in this household so I just want to allocate it correctly. Yes, I have a drain and fill plan in place.

Thanks.

In my opinion, steady state highway driving will require less wear and tear from the transaxle, simply because it will have less to do. Fewer gear changes mean fewer movements of everything in that box.

The thing that seems to be the worst for these automagic boxes though, is the belief in VW's marketing BS. You know, the one that claimed the 01M has a lifetime fluid so you never had to change it. The people that have had one run hundreds of thousands of miles without trouble didn't abuse them and changed the fluid and filter regularly. How you tell what the maintenance history is for an example you are trying to buy would be difficult at best, unless the seller can produce proper paperwork. But even then, there have been so many examples of professional mechanic screwups on this forum, and from dealers no less, that I would wonder even then. Maybe if I draw a fluid sample to see the color and do it while the engine is running so I could tell whether the fluid level was adequate then maybe I'd believe the claim.

But with the history of these things, it is hard to have a lot of faith that everything will be all sweetness and light as the seller will represent.

Good luck!

Cheers,

PH

Yeah, no kidding and well put. When I went to start my routine the fluid was very clear fortunately.

Thanks for your thoughts on this!!

I would definitely second that city is harder. The bigger Achilles heel of these transmissions is the valve bodies wear out, and then the clutches won't fully engage. All the slippage burns them up. I've also heard from a few people that the cooler really isn't efficient enough on them, but that's just what I've heard.

Thanks for this as well! I guess I will just run it for pure highway use since I am going to be doing a nasty mega commute for work.

My understanding is that more wear occurs with high temperatures inside transmission. I recently contacted ZF about fluid change in my car and they said to cut intervals by about 30% if vehicle is driven hard or at high speeds. And btw, that was for a car that supposedly comes with lifetime fluid.

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I mean it makes total sense. I've slapped a few valve bodies on a few 01m's and they are like new now. Have another scheduled to do this weekend. Gotten pretty good at fluid flushing them by now lol

Highway driving will wear them less as long as the torque converter lockup is
happening as it should. If it starts shifting in and out you need to find out why.