I had 7,000 miles on my 3 and about 1/2 of that was track miles. I decided to change the LSD oil, and now that I have I am glad i did. I have posted some pic of how dirty the oil was and the amount of metal shavings on the drain plug magnet.

I jacked the car up put it on jack stands . I had some trouble at first locating the fill plug. at first I thought it was on the passenger side but it is not the fill plug is on the drivers side about 6 inches forward of the drain plug. It is real close to some sort of heat exchanger and you do not have much room to move.

Tools Needed
Torx 25 (to remove under body panels)
Torx 55 or 10mm allen (to remove fill plug, drain plug)

supplies: Mobil Delvac 75w90 and a cheap hand pump.

1)put car on jack stands and remove two under body panels
2)Locate and loosen the fill plug. you will need a angled t55 or 10 mm allen 45 degrees
3:you will see a wire running just under the fill plug follow it and unplug it just to get it out of the way.
4) after the fill plug is loose then open the drain plug and let it drain. I like to give it a good 30 min. (motor and trans should be hot) You also want the car level, it the nose is lower it will not drain all the way. I jacked the front up to level it.
5) put the drain plug back and went to the fill plug, I pulled out my cheap hand pump. taped the inlet hose into the bottle and hand a helper slowly pump the pump until oil started running out of the fill hole.
6) I let the excess drain off. I lowered the left front about 3 inches to drain off a little of the extra fluid. I do not know if I had to do this but the factor fill was not running out of the fill plug. so I just wanted to back it off a bit.
7) I installed the fill plug and then reinstalled the under panels and done.

 

Excellent post! Spurs me on to do mine as well, well let the shop deal with it at least.

 

nice write up and thanks for the info

 

Thanks for posting. What are the factory recommended intervals ?
Is the LSD oil common to the gearbox as on the Carrera ? Noticed any change in shifting smoothness ?

 

I am not sure of what the factory fill intervals are, but I would suspect two years or more. If you are tracking the car at all and using the limited slip rear end allot, then I would do this at least 2X per year. some guys say every 3/4 events. tracking the car hard on hot days the LSD builds up allot of heat. I just want to keep it well lubricated. This cost me about $60.00 and an hr of my time. I just like to keep it well maintained.

the LSD and transmission are in the same case this is the recommended factory fill below.