A bit of research on the ATF +3 ATF +4 issue

Not exactly...

MerconV is synthetic based. (AFAIK) I don't have current cost per quart at hand but even if it were priced at $2 a quart, dig this;

Some Ford automatic transmissions now have a drain plug in the pan (that's the good news).

Now the bad news.

The drain plug is also the fill plug.

Yup, no dipstick tube, no fill hole.

Well, we now know who's been hiring from the bottom of the engineering class.

Chrysler ain't so bad.

Ted, I cannot figure out why you're paying $8 for a quart of ATF+4. I don't pay even close to that in Canadian dollars, let alone American ones. "$8 a quart is not uncommon" -- horsepuckey! You've just apparently spent your time posting a missive about evil bad Chrysler versus oil companies instead of finding a dealer who won't wallet-rape you.

DS

My dealer charges me, a walk-in consumer, a little over $5US/qt. by the quart, and something like $4.80US/qt. in gallon containers. I flushed (and will do future flushes of) my Concorde's 42LE with 16 qts. at a time, so, yeah, that's about $75 for the flush. Someone who wasn't as anal would still pay about $50 for 10 qts. I have seen enough posts on various forums to believe that there are some dealers around the U.S. that do indeed charge over $7/qt. - seems to be more prevalent in the (northern?) metropolitan areas.

So apparently if a given modern, with-it, movin'-n-shakin' manufacturer could convince you that they've come up with a true equivalent of ATF+4, you would buy it as long as they just did not tell you that it was the same stuff that was in their bottles labeled Dexron?, but just in a different package labeled for equivalency to ATF+4? 8^)

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

Apparently there is a factory rebate in effect for many Mopar service items, including many fluids, belts, brakes, belts, shocks, etc through the end of November. Ask your dealer to see if this applies, which could help lower the price.

Thanks, good info. However I don't use ATF +4, I have a 1995 minivan that runs fine on ATF +3. Hope this helps someone out there.

Ted

No, your missing the point. Right now the ATF +4 additive package is sole-sourced. Sooner or later if Chrysler doesen't let go of it, the rest of the oil companies are going to get tired of playing games with them, and one of them that makes additive packages is going to produce a duplicate of the ATF +4 additive package, and sell it to all the rest of the blenders. The point I am making is that when this happens they won't be able to use the ATF +4 trademark and so will create something else then that will be used by the rest of the ATF producers, which will be rather confusing for the customers.

The last thing that we need is to make transmission fluid labeling even more complicated than they are. It's bad enough that the automakers can't standardize on one fluid, but at least the ones that are out there are known by recognizable trademarks. This is only because nobody has as of yet played the games that Chrysler is playing. If all the rest of the automakers decide that what Chrysler is doing is a great way to make extra money, your going to see all of them redesign their trannys so as to take incompatible fluids.

Ted

Daniel I expected better from you. $8 is an example figure as anyone reading can plainly see. The problem is that Chrysler has a lock on ATF +4 and can set the price anywhere they choose. You cannot guarentee or even give any hope at all that a month from now Chrysler might not just decide to start charging $15 a quart.

By contrast, with Dexron, Type F and so on, because those are not sole-sourced, competition will prevent one company from gouging it's customers.

Look, I don't even own a 1997-or-later Chrysler that requires ATF +4, I own a 1995 minivan that takes ATF +3. The last time I flushed it, I used off-the-shelf Valvoline ATF+3 and it cost about $1.79 a quart. Compare that to the lowest price for ATF +4 that any respondent has posted - $5 a quart, and I paid $21.48 for a case, while your paying $60.00 And on top of that, one of my relatives that works at a Dodge dealership gave me 2 cases of ATF +4 for free that he bought for a car he owned then sold, and never ended up using. They are sitting collecting dust now.

The point is that there's a rising number of companies out there which are trying to follow the "razor/blade" marketing strategy, where they give away the item then screw you for the consumables. This has of course always existed in a small way in the auto business for many dealer-only parts like body trim, etc. But those parts are at least well within the core competency of the automakers who after all deal with parts every day.

But, getting into consumables like oil, ATF and other fluids is most definitely not in the automakers core competencies. Chrysler does not have a single oil refinery and is most definitely not an oil company. They add absolutely no value to the ATF +4 product, and by sole-sourcing it, they merely are adding more costs to the product for no reason. The fluid vendors by contrast are actually making the fluids, plus they already have an existing distribution network, adding in ATF +4 to their product lines could be done far cheaper than Chrysler doing it.

You wouldn't buy a car manufactured and sold by Exxon, why do you think it's normal to buy automatic transmission fluid from a car maker?

Ted

Anyone know the greatest mystery of all. What is the name of the company the makes the ATF for CC.

Warren

I don't have a problem with non-compatible fluids between brands, because the Tran. fluid today is so tightly tied in with the transmission design. Requiring a standardized fluid would handicap the design and innovation for the transmission fluid, and also the transmission itself. I want car makes to make improvements without waiting for the entire industry to do the same. I also expect the price of the ATF+4 fluid will fall quite a bit in the next few years as servicing of the newer transmissions becomes commonplace.

As you mentioned, Chrysler doesn't manufacture the fluids, and it probably didn't invent them either--it contracts with a specialty supplier to do that.

The fluid maker probably spent quite a bit in R&D to develop a fluid for Chrylser's transmissions that works well and lasts a long time. It may even hold some patents used in the manufacturing of the fluid. That would explain why that manufacturer gets to make all of it. As time passes, however, expect that to change, just as it has with other products.

According to a post almost exactly a year ago in this ng

You said it was "not uncommon". I and several others told you you're fulla shit, 'cause you are. The only logical conclusion is you're paying too much for trans fluid.

Yeah, and you can't guarantee that a month from now frogs won't develop claws and start living in toilets.

DS

Just for giggles

If you would kindly read the link I included in my post labeled

"Article that details Chrysler's monopoly on ATF +4"

you would see that the fluid manufacturer is being prevented by Chrysler from selling the ATF +4 additive package.

Furthermore, even if the fluid manufacturer did sell the ATF +4 additive package, the bottle can't say ATF +4 unless Chrysler gives it's permission, as ATF +4 is a registered trademark of theirs.

Ted

Let's apply the same reasoning to motor oil, gasoline, anti-freeze, chassis lube, etc.

I don't. The problem isn't the wholesale cost of ATF +4. I'm quite sure the volume of it being consumed is sufficient for whichever fluid manufacturer has the contract to make it to be able to sell it to Chrysler at the same wholesale cost that they would sell any other comparable synthetic trans fluid.

The problem is that the only distribution channel for ATF +4 is Chrysler's dealers. This dealer network and Chrysler itself add most of the cost to the fluid. Chrysler and the dealer network are designed and optimized to distributing cars, not fluids. A typical auto parts retailer is by contrast optimized for distributing stuff like trans fluid, which means they can do it cheaper, and these savings would be passed along to the consumer if there was competition.

Ted

And the interesting thing is that in the product data sheet for Petro-Canada's synthetic ATF, they claim ATF +4 compatability.

Ted

Sorry, didn't follow this thread from the start. Is the ATF-3 and the ATF-4 compatable. We have a 93 Caravan that uses the ATF3.

Warren