Also known as: 5hp, 5hp18, 5hp19, 5hp24, 5hp30, zf 5-speed automatic
ZF's longitudinal five-speed family — in the BMW Z3 and much of BMW's range, the Range Rover L322's V8, and across Audi, Jaguar, VW and Porsche.
The number after the 5HP is torque capacity, not a generation: the 5HP18 and 5HP19 are the small ones, the 5HP24 and 5HP30 the large. Two cars of the same make and year carry different members, chosen by the engine, and their parts do not interchange.
Its defining failure is the valve body and the sealing rings, and the symptom sequence is the useful part: a delayed or harsh engagement into drive when cold, then a flare on one change, then slipping. The early stage does not feel like the start of a failure, and by the time it does the clutch packs are usually gone.
These were the first widely-sold "lifetime fill" automatics, which is most of why so many died early. They are not sealed for life, the fluid is a specific ZF specification, and a unit at 200,000 km on its original fill is the commonest version of every complaint above.
The 6HP that replaced it has a mechatronic unit and quite different failures; a procedure written for one does not describe the other.
Cars fitted with this gearbox
2 generations. Only where a source names the model and the generation together — a gearbox is documented as a product far more often than as a fitment, so this list is deliberately shorter than the truth.
Land Rover
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
Be the first to write this up
Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
Sign in or create an account to add what you found about ZF 5HP.