synthetic transmission fluid?

[chrissev]

Gears grinding when cold.  Starting to bother me (especially second, which shakes the whole car when I engage it).  When warm of course it shifts like I'm shifting in warm butter.  Anyone know if switching to some sort of synthetic transmission fluid would clear up this problem?  The problem is quite obviously that the transmission fluid is not flowing well enough when it is cold.  Same problem I had with my engine oil, and putting 5W40 Castrol syntec in has cured that.  Is there some kind of thin or synthetic transmission fluid I could put in?  It's a 5spd manual (obviously).  I believe I have 80w90 gear oil in it now.

[farkman]

Redline MTL is probably the thinnest oil you can get. There's quite a few users/fans of MTL on the board who can tell you what it feels like. By the way, I'm not one of them (a user that is).

[Rat407]

It isn't just the VW tranny that seems to do well with Redline MTL or MT-90. I did a search on Google and got a ton of hits from different sites that run it in their trannies.  It seems to be the oil of choice.  If you go on Bobistheoilguy.com and do a search, they recommend a 50/50 mix of MTL and MT-90 for hard cold weather shifting. That site is excellent for any lubricant/filter questions.
Like Farkman, I'm not a user of Redline. Might give it a try the next time I need to change out the oil in my tranny, which might be sooner than I like due to leaking drive flange seals.  

[RAMMSTEIN]

I use Redline MTL and the first 5 shifts at -28 are laborious, but after it gets better.

1 km after you've started, it shifts better than during summer....

By the time you feel heat warm air by the vents (it take about 4 km on a TDI), it's soooooooooooooooo smooth, unbelievable.

I would go straight MTL for winter for sure.

It's good in summer too, for our climate anyway.