What is Limited Slip Gear Oil?

LS oil for LSD in a 4WD – how’s that for a bit of techno-jargon? It’s really not that bad. Simply, limited slip gear oil is oil for the limited slip differentials of 4-wheel drive vehicles (primarily, although it’s also what allows high-performance cars to perform burnouts!).

A standard open differential will always transfer an equal amount of power to the wheels, which can cause a problem if you’re off-road and one or more of your wheels is on different terrain to the other(s) – this is when you see a free wheel spinning at high speed while the vehicle remains stuck.

Limited slip differentials on the other hand can sense when a wheel is losing traction, and ‘locks’ to redistribute the drive equally: in other words, it limits ‘slippage’. This way, even if one wheel has less traction than the others, the vehicle will be able to move forwards.

This operation is too extreme for standard gear oils, so in order to prolong the life of the differential it’s vital to use the correct limited slip oil, which also contains specially selected extreme-pressure additives and friction modifiers. We usually sell our Vargear LS 90 into agricultural and heavy-duty plant, but we can also source limited slip high performance gear oil for a multitude of different vehicles.

This basic lesson in Limited Slip automotive gear oil was brought to you today by Team TW! Check out our gear oil range online at www.twoils.co.uk or email sales@twoils.co.uk to talk to the team about your specific requirements.