Axle Oil Temperature Warning

Hey everyone. Took my 18 GT PP for its first track day and absolutely had a blast!

The car performs beautifully and the PS4S tires are great. However, after several laps I had a warning notification come up on my dashboard "Axle Oil Temperature Warning. Reduce Speed". So I proceeded to cool down and head to the pits. After going out again for several laps, same warning.

Just wanted to know if this is a common occurrence in PP mustangs and if I should look into changing my diff fluid.

BigBoss5.0 said:

Hey everyone. Took my 18 GT PP for its first track day and absolutely had a blast!

The car performs beautifully and the PS4S tires are great. However, after several laps I had a warning notification come up on my dashboard "Axle Oil Temperature Warning. Reduce Speed". So I proceeded to cool down and head to the pits. After going out again for several laps, same warning.

Just wanted to know if this is a common occurrence in PP mustangs and if I should look into changing my diff fluid.

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Start by reading this thread, lots of good info there.
https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53695

Dave

Curious what the ambient temp was and how long the sessions were?

PRE-Z06 said:

Curious what the ambient temp was and how long the sessions were?

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Canada in April...can't be that warm, if I had to guess in the 50s or 60s.

After reading the thread mentioned above, start with some better diff fluid and exhaust wrap on the pipes that go around the diff.

EFI said:

Canada in April...can't be that warm, if I had to guess in the 50s or 60s.

After reading the thread mentioned above, start with some better diff fluid and exhaust wrap on the pipes that go around the diff.

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Yeah that's what I was thinking and surprised he'd be getting an alarm honestly, can only imagine how fast it'd be triggered on a triple digit day down here in Texas. I believe the '18 now shows actual temp and was also curious if he looked at the temperature when the alarm sounded and what oil temp was? I ran a time trial with an '18 last month and it wasn't throwing a diff temp alarm though it was having other issues that kept it from running that long.

PRE-Z06 said:

Yeah that's what I was thinking and surprised he'd be getting an alarm honestly, can only imagine how fast it'd be triggered on a triple digit day down here in Texas. I believe the '18 now shows actual temp and was also curious if he looked at the temperature when the alarm sounded and what oil temp was? I ran a time trial with an '18 last month and it wasn't throwing a diff temp alarm though it was having other issues that kept it from running that long.

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What other issues did you have? I had a student last weekend at Eagle's Canyon Raceway with a PP '18 with an automatic report of engine oil temp issues. First I had heard of that.

BigBoss5.0 said:

Hey everyone. Took my 18 GT PP for its first track day and absolutely had a blast!

The car performs beautifully and the PS4S tires are great. However, after several laps I had a warning notification come up on my dashboard "Axle Oil Temperature Warning. Reduce Speed". So I proceeded to cool down and head to the pits. After going out again for several laps, same warning.

Just wanted to know if this is a common occurrence in PP mustangs and if I should look into changing my diff fluid.

Click to expand...

And this is why many of us have been complaining about the PP2 lacking a diff cooler, like the direct competition has (at the same price).

DR_ said:

What other issues did you have? I had a student last weekend at Eagle's Canyon Raceway with a PP '18 with an automatic report of engine oil temp issues. First I had heard of that.

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With the higher redline of the Gen III and higher compression/more power, I'm not surprised to hear that. The Gen IIs were borderline in that department, especially if pushed hard to 6500+. Past that rev limit the engine temps climb quickly, so I can believe one being pushed to 7500 would start overheating the oil especially a 5w20.

I run the BG 140 in my diff out in Arizona. Have had three triple digit track days and no warning light. Just a service advance trac warning. I am also running Track Spec hood vents and have dropped oil temps by about 15 degrees. down from 280+ to 250ish.

I got the diff warning on a triple digit day (also in AZ) on my second 20 minute session, ended up having to cut the session early. That day sessions were about 40 minutes apart so not much cool down time in between.

I ended up wrapping the exhaust near the diff with heat wrap and also stopped going to track days with such short cool down periods. I have down over a dozen track days since then with cool down period between session averaging around 2 hours and have yet to see the warning come back. I think the cool down timing was critical. I'm still running OE fluid.

I do plan to do some Track Spec hood vents as well as a diff cooler eventually. Great to hear @wmfateam you saw that much oil temp reduction with just the side vents.

DR_ said:

What other issues did you have? I had a student last weekend at Eagle's Canyon Raceway with a PP '18 with an automatic report of engine oil temp issues. First I had heard of that.

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Brakes overheating on a base car was the issue.

EFI said:

With the higher redline of the Gen III and higher compression/more power, I'm not surprised to hear that. The Gen IIs were borderline in that department, especially if pushed hard to 6500+. Past that rev limit the engine temps climb quickly, so I can believe one being pushed to 7500 would start overheating the oil especially a 5w20.

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The shift extension of the a10 doesn't help either.

Unfortunately I didn't think to really check the temps, I just had the car cool down between sessions. From what I read the warning light comes on at 293 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a mild day roughly 62 degrees, so I am worried for the hotter days to come.

Going to change the fluid and look into wrapping the exhaust, hope that will make a difference.

BigBoss5.0 said:

Unfortunately I didn't think to really check the temps, I just had the car cool down between sessions. From what I read the warning light comes on at 293 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a mild day roughly 62 degrees, so I am worried for the hotter days to come.

Going to change the fluid and look into wrapping the exhaust, hope that will make a difference.

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This will likely solve your problem, it did for me. Bg fluid from Optimum Performance.

DR_ said:

What other issues did you have? I had a student last weekend at Eagle's Canyon Raceway with a PP '18 with an automatic report of engine oil temp issues. First I had heard of that.

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There has been a few threads recently regarding 2018 GT 5.0 engine oil concerns, more so total Quarts needed - because some Dealership Service Centers are only refilling with (8) Qts when the 2018 takes a total of (10) Qts.

If he was running into higher oil temps, not saying the above happened to his vehicle, BUT he may want to make sure it has (10) Qts (if a GT) and dipstick is reading full on level ground.