ZF gearbox: The unsung hero powering more than BMW

Despite the ZF gearbox being associated with BMW, many other well-known brands also use this car part.

You can have all the engine power you want, but without a gearbox to transfer that power to your vehicle’s wheels, this means nothing.

The ZF eight-speed ensures one of the best automatic transmissions possible.

ZF Friedrichshafen, also known as the ZF Group, is a German 100-year-old technology manufacturing company that supplies systems and components for a variety of passenger and commercial vehicles.

The company is also involved in the rail, marine and aviation industries.

Gear levers in cars like the Ineos Grenadier is associated with BMW, and rightfully so as the vehicle is also fitted with a 3.0-litre six-cylinder BMW engine and an eight-speed auto ZF transmission.

Senior Pupkewitz BMW technician Erik Makhosi sings the ZF’s praises for various reasons – among them the low maintenance and responsiveness of the gearbox.

“The ZF gearbox is one of the best I have dealt with in my entire life. It delivers quite a responsive reaction once you’re in the vehicle,” Makhosi says.

If you buy a high-end vehicle, the odds are that it may come with ZF transmission.

It is also popular in luxury and sport cars.

The ZF was also designed with fuel efficiency in mind.

The smooth and soft gear changes are a pleasure when driving, Makhosi says.

Even when towing a trailer, the transmission is doing what it was designed for, and the vehicle’s response when gears needed to change do so with ease, he says.

Makhosi says the gearbox needs little servicing and, unlike other gearboxes, does not need an oil change after a certain number of kilometres travelled.

Do not try and service the gearbox yourself, however, but rather let a qualified and certified technician work on it, he says.

Well-known motorsport enthusiast Richard Slamet says it feels like one long gear as one hardly feels the change in gears.

Some of the cars using the eight-speed ZF are the BMW, Foton bakkies, Toyota Supra, some Alfa models, the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Trackhawk, Rolls Royce, Ineos Grenadier and the JAC T9.