Did the PDK Fluid replacement tonight on my wife's 2018 Macan base with 47K miles on the clock. Overall it was a very easy job. I got everything I needed from Pelican Parts a couple months back but hadn't had time yet to do the service. All of the videos I've watched were on 6 cylinder cars so I was a little surprised when I didn't see a heat shield or the exhaust on the side of the PDK housing but it immediately dawned on me as to why. It certainly made the fluid change a lot easier though since there was no hot exhaust pipe to get in the way while waiting for the PDK fluid to reach 40c/104F for the final fill to spill while at temperature. The QJ 7000TL also made the job very easy too.
A few things that made the job especially easy was having a catch bucket of an appropriate size for the job. I bought a
7 gallon storage bin a while ago to use as a catch bucket. I use this when I change the oil in my 2018 RAM 2500 diesel because that holds 3 gallons of oil. The 7 gallon size is plenty big. It catches the fluid from the drain plug, the fill plug, and the filter housing all at the same time if you position it right.
A 17mm ratcheting wrench fits the filter housing much better than a 17mm socket so even if you just buy that one wrench it's worth it. But as inexpensive as a whole set is from Harbor Freight just buy the whole set. The other thing that I did to make the job easier was I left all of the liter jugs of PDK fluid in the cardboard box they were shipped in so they acted as one large container of PDK fluid instead of six individual liter jugs that would be prone to tipping over while trying to pump the fluid out if you're using a
small hand operated fluid pump. I left the empty bottles in the box when I filled them back up with the old fluid so they wouldn't tip over also. I ended up with 5 liters out and 5 liters back in. I was able to connect my iCarSoft Pro to the OBDII port, start the car, run through the gears, get back under the car, and monitor the fluid temperature myself while waiting for the fluid to reach 40c/104F so I could do the final fill to spill because the cord is plenty long enough. Once the fluid hit the proper temp and I did the final fill I just pulled the hose out of the fill hole and put the fill plug back in and torqued it to spec. I crawled out from under the car and turned it off. I wiped everything down with a rag and put the underbody panel back on, lowered it off the QJ, and took it for a drive. The shifts were very smooth in automatic, in manual PDK mode, and Sport mode.
Just want to thank everyone who has posted their efforts on doing the PDK fluid change. I may not have attempted this without seeing everyone else's successes. Between this forum, YouTube, Pelican Parts, and others etc. I felt plenty confident doing it and in comparison to a regular oil change it was on about the same level. I may even do the next one sooner than 40K based on how dirty the fluid was on this one.
