Putting our transmission fluids to the test

As performance requirements for the transmission market continue to increase, Infineum continually evolves to find the right fluid solutions.

Field testing provides a true test of the quality of our technology. Many O.E.Ms mandate the generation of field test data in order to obtain their specific approvals. Our impressive track record in managing and delivering field trials, helps deliver performance you can rely on.
Our latest field trial was designed to meet the most severe requirements for Z.F. 8 H.P. automatic transmissions.

Conducting our field trials in extreme real-world conditions is key to developing field proven products, pushing our technology to its limits. And this trial was no exception; in fact, this was the most demanding trial we’ve ever created.

We took three of the latest production BMW 5 Series passenger cars and loaded them to their maximum allowable weight. On top of the heavy load, the route mapped out in Germany provided diverse driving conditions to accumulate 100,000 kilometers. Route included city roads, cross-country routes and motorways, enabling us to push the vehicles up to the speed of 190 kilometers per hour.

As if that wasn’t demanding enough, for 50 percent of the trial we also attached a fully loaded air drag trailer to each vehicle, adding another 2,000 kilograms, resulting in an overall vehicle weight of over 4.5 tons! At this weight, we dropped the maximum speed to 100 kilometres to ensure we were within the legal limit.

With the expertise of professional engineers and drivers, we tested the vehicles drivability at the start, middle and end of the test. The transmission demonstrated excellent shift behaviour at each stage of the trial, indicating the remarkable anti-shudder durability performance of the fluid in these truly demanding conditions.

When we inspected the transmission hardware at the end trial, we were delighted with the results.
The inspection of all of the parts gave an outstanding result. The parts are almost like brand new and they are very good for going a lot, lot, longer.

If I look at the gears, usually you will find micro pitting, you will find pitting or wear in the gears. But actually, if you look at these parts they look almost like new. We really in-depth checked for micro pitting, we checked for wear, we checked for real pitting and we couldn’t find anything. The parts are absolutely in perfect condition.

Finding zero issues with key components like the gears, friction plates and bearings was truly outstanding after such severe testing. Not only did the inspection confirm the reliability of our fluid throughout the 100,000 kilometres test, it also demonstrated the superior performance our technology can provide in real-world driving conditions.