WS transmission fluid is garbage . Get it out of your transmission now

Motul offers a WS compatible fluid:

https://www.motul.com/system/produc...8/original/Multi_ATF_(GB)_0714.pdf?1409848764

 

Here is my Blackstone report 86,000 miles on ATF and Tacoma.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

That is what I call objetive evidence.!, it seems Toyota WS is not that bad at all.

 

When I hit 200k I will flush again. I was also surprised that the ATF was in such good shape. I do a lot of coasting with tranny in neutral, and going from neutral to drive at 70mph i suspect would cause a little extra metal in the oil.

 

it's been 2 years since OP said he would back up with credible sources. he never did. he also later posts than he is not advocating that there is anything wrong with WS fluid nor that he is trying to steer people away from other brands. i find this slightly inconsistent considering the title of his thread.

 

i wonder why not one transmission expert has ever appeared on any of the forums and stated whether or not these universal atf's are a good alternative for oem transmission fluid.

 

out of curiosity, why do you do this? thought our trucks have fuel injector cutoffs which activate when the gas pedal is not engaged

 

Okay. The deal with mine is I had the factory WS fluid in originally obviously. Installed the TRD blower At around 56K or so. Ever since that blower install, 4-5 gear upshift would intermittently skate (or slip) a good 500 rpm. Even when just cruising along the freeway. It was really odd.

I flushed the fluid out at about 61K and refilled it with valvoline maxlife ATF using a transmission flush machine and cleared the TCM memory to make it relearn transmission shift patterns using a high end scan tool. I really wasn't expecting a huge improvement over the symptoms and was fearing the transmission was on the fritz. Fast forward to 63K and some good and hard driving mileage logged onto the truck and not a single slip from 4 to 5. Just a nice solid engagement from gear to gear every single time. I approve of flushing out WS!

 

I wouldn't flush a transmission though, only drain, fill, repeat until most of the old ws fluid is removed. Flushing an older transmission could cause debris to become lodged in places it shouldn't be. I'm at 115k, I plan on drain/filling a few times this summer

 

You realize that flush machine I used circulates in new fluid as it flushes in the old fluid bit by bit a little bit at a time until there is nothing left in there but new right? Lol.

 

Maybe it depends on the flush machine and also the age/wear&tear on the transmission, but typically flushing a transmission is avoided due to many things. I'm not a pro and don't know all about it, but for my older trans all the shops I talked said do not flush...newer trans you're probably fine

 

Yeah I had less than 60K on it. I'm good. Lol. A Taco with 175K first gen I got in the shop right now who never did any maintenance to his fluid. Not so much. He needs a new trans because of a P0770 code. Torque converter clutch lockup failure due to fluid contamination.

 

Neutral, no resistence from the tranny, coast longer,maintain higher speed,use less fuel over the distance of my trip.

 

If you're implying dropping the truck into neutral increases mpg, that's probably incorrect. You might coast further, but when the truck is in drive and coasting, the engine shuts off the injectors and uses the trans to cycle the engine, giving better mpg. When in neutral, the engine must now run itself and at a higher rpm.

 

My wife has the 08 Highlander Hybrid and I wanted to drain/refill the ATF. Must I use the Toyota WS or is the Maxlife safe in the hybrid? I assume I will have to both drain and refill from below the vehicle since I don't think it has a dipstick/filling tube under the hood. Car has 125K miles

 

Dipsticks started disappearing in Toyota cars in late '07. Not sure about the Highlander Hybrid. You might want to pop the hood and look around.

If it were my vehicle, I'd go to -> http://www.techinfo.toyota.com and buy a 2 day subscription. Download pertinent factory service manual info. A Hybrid could make
for some interesting challenges. Not sure.

You might also want to visit the following site. Might be of some help.

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/63-highlander-hybrid/

I am not convinced that Toyota WS ATF is bad for Toyota's; however, I do not buy into all of these extended interval changes that Toyota has switched to. That said, some people are doing just fine with it.

Whatever.

 

I have several posts in this topic from early on. As I mentioned before, I changed out the WS fluid at a time when there were no alternatives. At that time Toyota claimed WS was a synthetic fluid. Without much effort back then we learned it was not a synthetic fluid. It appeared that to gain increased MPG to meet gov't requirements they went to a low viscosity fluid as did other oems.

I did not just decide "oh this looks good" and use Mobil 1 ATF. I researched the WS fluid, the 750 trans in my 2010 that used WS fluid and previous version that did not use WS fluid. There was no indication that there was any internal change to mandate the WS fluid. The previous Type IV at the time crossed over to Mobil 1 ATF. I saw no risk.

Saying that, after the flush and fill, the entire "feel" from the shifter being moved into gear, to the smoothness of the transmission was apparent.

Myself, I have no worries if you run WS or not, if you decide to run the fluid for 25k miles or 125k miles. The recent oil analysis report seems good, however the owner admits he does not drive the vehicle in a typical way. Probably made no difference, but then again who knows.

Now a bunch of years after I first went to Mobil 1 ATF, there are many other fluids labeled as WS compatible. Ironically, many of these fluids cross over to other specs that are common and were available way back.

In the end, I believe the 750 transmission is a good unit.

Run what you like, like what you run. I have the Mobil 1 ATF and spin on filter waiting for me to find a bit of time to flush and fill with a filter change. I expect continued good results.

All the best guys.

 

Ive been following this thread since the beginning and I still havent seen a strong enough argument to remove the WS fluid.

If I do a drain and fill (2-3 quarts) every 30K miles or 2 years for a total cost of $30-$35. That to me is super cheap insurance for the life of the vehicle.

At this point I think if it isnt broken why fix it.

RJM

 

for what its worth, here's my report from the flush at 63k