Last year I bought my Patrol and decided to replace all oils, gearbox, diffs etc I took my car to a reputable expert, shortly thereafter I noticed the gear changes weren't as smooth and when stopping I'd hear a clunk. The same goes for switching from N to D. Anyways I drove it for almost a year and sometimes I noticed it started rolling backwards on hills. I also developed a gearbox "sweat" mark. It was due for a service and decided to take it to a Nissan Dealership. Long story short they topped up with the incorrect spec oil. Interestingly the same oil the earlier mechanic used. After almost 30 days of waiting for the correct spec oil - Matic J/S NOT Matic D / Dex 3 as used on the older 4.5 AUTO gearbox. I eventually went to Fuchs in Isando and purchased the correct spec oil. The gearbox was flushed as best we could +-9l came out. Not only was the correct oil cheaper but I spent almost half doing a 90% flush of what I spent previously doing a 40% oil "replacement".
Since then, it's been a month or so and done a couple trips. Gear changes are SUPER smooth, car holds up a hill with a loaded trailer without rolling backwards, engine is quieter as it doesn't rev as high due to torque converter locking up earlier plus my fuel consumption has got better by almost 8%. My gearbox doesn't sweat anymore either. Different beast entirely and it accelerates with refinement, it feels like it has much more torque.
I must mention that ALL the dealers in Gauteng were MISINFORMED and ONLY Nissan Upington and Nissan SA (depending on who you spoke to) knew the correct spec. I ended up printing a service bulletin from Nissan Japan to show the dealerships their stuff up.
In conclusion guys don't trust any mechanic to use the correct spec oil. Not from a deceit perspective but in that they genuinely might not know the subtle differences. I will continue to use said mechanic, as he is good.
Sometimes don't fix it if it ain't broke
