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

I guess to be a smart ass, I will say that those are great results, we should consider how much better they will be with good ATF in there.

 

I flushed with amsoil so we'll find out in 30k when I drain/refill

 

Interesting. And please do not take this wrong, I am curious about something. You got a good report using WS fluid, then switched to another brand, Amsoil. Not debating the good or bad of Amsoil that so often happens. I am truly curious, with the Amsoil, did you notice if the transmission just has a less notchy feel when moving the shifter and the shift points are more consistent in how they feel when you drive.

When I went to Mobil 1 long time back, the first thing I noticed was how the gear shifter almost immediately became smoother and less notchy in how it felt when going from park to drive or into reverse.

 

yea, before the switch the shifter did feel "notchy", and I feel the shift points are more consistent now than before, but I wouldn't attribute that specifically to amsoil. I'm sure I would've gotten the same results with fresh WS. I did the flush, then submitted the sample for testing. Had I done the testing before the flush, say with a drain/fill procedure, I probably would've been less inclined to switch from WS.

 

And here's mine for comparison at 120k, first fluid change.

 

Interesting..wonder why I got considerably more iron in my sample than you with nearly half the miles

 

Local garage has a full tranny flush for 120 dollars with vavlevoline max life.... They said they lost money on my truck they didn't realize it would take 17 qts of fluid. I'm glad they honored their price quotes when they wrote it up.

 

Only takes 12 qts for the auto tranny in V6 2nd Gen.

 

Someone better check their trans for an overfill...

Thanks for posting the oil analysis' fellas. As I originally said when I first posted in here I'm not for or against WS other than paying Toyota when I could use cheaper and more available Valvoline MaxLife. We'll see what comes up when I run an analysis on it in a few thousand miles (unless it explodes from not using WS!)

My report also had an average of 17,000 miles so my readings were showing high for having 50,000 on the fluid but it looks right around the same ball park for what their new average mileage is so I'd have no qualms running WS again.

 

I'm super excited that you're doing an analysis on the Maxlife! Keep us posted!

 

I'm going to do it around 50K again so I think I have another 20 or so to go. The transmission will obviously have that many more miles on it but I think it will show similar results when all of that is taken into account.

 

I think they ran it until it was clear. Level on my transmission is spot on. No worries on refill.

 

So if I decide to switch from WS to MaxLife or Mobile1, is it ok to mix with the WS residual? Ie, if I do a drain and fill of 3 qts, will the new 3 qts of Mobile1 and the existing WS still in the trans be a problem? Sorry if this has been asked before in the prior 12 pages of posts.

 

If I were swapping fluid, I'd get all the old out first. The only way I can see to do that would be to do a complete flush. Lots of posts in this forum on how to do that.

 

Because they have better things to do?
But we have a couple ASE techs on the forum..

 

I will be doing a pseudo flush when I put in RP later this year. I drained, filled with Valvoline MaxLife.
I will let that circulate, do some cleaning.

I will order a new filter and gasket.
I will drain, drop the bottom, replace the filter and gasket (This is really eay, there is a great video on Youtube.


I will then close up, fill with fluid, disconnect trans cooler line so fluid drains from there, start vehicle, let it drain, turn off, fill again. Repeat a couple quarts at a time until I start seeing the clean new fluid come out. Then it will be flushed.

As for the previous debate on always following Toyotas recommendation, there is some merit to that, and a bunch of crap. The simple fact is that GM (who makes all the fluids used) continually supercedes old fluid with newer varieties as improvements are made. They dont make older fluids like Dex-1, Dex-2 anymore. So when you look at these replacements, they meet the specs. For example

Valvoline Maxlife Product Information



Royal Purple Max ATF Product Information


WS not listed and here's why:

As for "never change the ATF on an older vehicle", from what I read this is highly dependent on the tranny health. Check the dipstick. If its overheated and its burnt, dont touch it.

What seems to happen is yes, your tranny is effed, but it will operate for a while in that condition, how long is anyones guess, but if you put new fluid/flush one that overheated, it will go bad quicker. Possibly its because the cleaning stuff in newer fluid will start to strip off burnt fluid/crap and this will eventually gum up the works.

But if you have non-burnt ok fluid then you should be fine.

In my case, at 163K the fluid smelt fine, just used. I suspect the PO changed it out at some interval. So I decided to put some Valvoline in there, run it for a couple K before the flush then go for it.

Another thing which has helped some people is SeaFoam transtune. This appears to help for people who have some engagement/shifting issues. In that case its add it for a couple hundred miles (or whatever it says) to clean prior to a fluid change. I bought a can of this, but dont know if I am going to bother using it since I dont have any problems.

 

Maybe because they merged with Exxon/Esso and that would impact revenue here?

 

Honda gets its reliability from an insanely intensive maintenance schedule. Water Pump? Replace at 40K
I was surprised when I looked at the recommended maintenance in my mom's Civic manual.

 

Marketing. Makes all the sense in the world.

 

So gearcruncher, would you say Valvoline MaxLife ATF can replace my WS tranny fluid in my 2008 Toyota Tundra?