Gear oil MOTUL or RED LINE
I have the 5sp manual and use Motul 300 75w90 gear oil for the trans & dif.
The best gear oil you can buy is Motul Gear 300 but I’m not sure that will help you here.
Brakes are genuinely impressive for this segment. Only real issue I faced was chain wear — once you start maintaining it, it improves. I lube mine with 2T gear oil, works surprisingly well. Used Motul for most services, but the last one was with Prolube and the bike feels a bit rougher since then.
If Wavetrac and my gear manufacturers like Motul 300 75W-90, I'm content with it.
When I was researching MTF I found several experience that said the older Toyota transmissions get a little crunchy on the RedLine and I saw lots of good reports for Motul 300 75W-90 so I used that in mine earlier this year. It doesn't have issues but the shifting is ever so slightly smoother.
Fresh gear oil can help grinding synchros. It sounds weird, but it's true. 75w90 GL5 is the oil you need. Motul gear 300 is the most recommended gear oil brand for subarus, but any GL5 rated 75w90 gear oil will probably help a lot.
I recently replaced my front and rear differential oil with Redline 75W85 full synthetic.
For me the Redline was crunchier at low temps.
i put redline MT90 in it + it shifted decently good until i blew 5th gear at 105 thou good luck
I had tried Redline MT90 to get rid of the intermittent grind into 2nd, but it made all shifting more difficult and always grind into 2nd. So I went back to OEM.
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Which gear oil to choose — MOTUL or RED LINE?
If choosing gear oil across many manufacturers, check the part ranking. If your choice is down to two brands, the PartReview part comparisons help.
We compare gear oil across these categories:
- PR Score.
- Overall ranking.
- Vote balance.
- Average rating.
- Number of reviews.
- Feature ratings.
- Car owners’ choice.
Which gear oil are better — RED LINE or MOTUL?
In March 2026 on PartReview, gear oil RED LINE were overall better than MOTUL.
- MOTUL received a PR Score of 100 out of 100, and RED LINE scored 80 points.
- MOTUL ranked 3 in the overall ranking, and RED LINE ranked 1.
- The average rating is higher for MOTUL (4.8) than for RED LINE (4.1).
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Gear oil MOTUL have better feature ratings than RED LINE:
- Noise - owners believe, that by this property MOTUL does not differ from RED LINE.
- Smell - drivers claim, that this property for RED LINE is outperforms MOTUL.
- Leaks - reviews suggest, that this property for RED LINE is preferred to MOTUL.
Which gear oil are more popular — MOTUL or RED LINE?
In March 2026 on PartReview, gear oil RED LINE were overall more popular than MOTUL.
By vote balance, gear oil RED LINE surpassed MOTUL:
- For MOTUL, the ratio of positive (30) to negative (0) votes is 30 votes.
- For RED LINE, the ratio of positive (91) to negative (22) votes is 69 votes.
By number of reviews, gear oil RED LINE surpassed MOTUL:
- For gear oil MOTUL there are 10 reviews: 10 positive, 0 neutral, 0 negative.
- For gear oil RED LINE there are 36 reviews: 27 positive, 5 neutral, 4 negative.
Which gear oil do car owners prefer — MOTUL or RED LINE?
In March 2026, according to PartReview, gear oil MOTUL led more car-specific ratings than RED LINE:
MOTUL are chosen by owners of cars such as: Volkswagen Golf, and others.
Gear oil RED LINE have not yet taken leading positions in car-specific ratings. You can help by adding a review and specifying your car.
Other comparisons of gear oil
If this comparison didn’t fully answer your question, there are many others on PartReview.
For example, comparisons of gear oil MOTUL with: AMSOIL.
Also available: comparisons of gear oil RED LINE with: AMSOIL.
You can also see who is better among other gear oil manufacturers: AMSOIL or RED LINE, MOTUL or AMSOIL.