Analysis of my used ATF (T-IV) after 25,000 miles in '06 Camry with U250E transmission

Why would you even bother pouring in an ounce of fluid into any of the many holes that fluid should be poured into? An ounce of fluid is less than the plus/minus range of a fully filled condition. You can't even measure an ounce on the dipstick! You can't measure a cup on many of the fluids, the transmission fluid among them.

If the fluid was warm when you collected the sample, it won't matter because it will be all mixed up anyhow.

There are far too many strange statements about adding an ounce, partial fills, and so on. I can't take it anymore ...

HOW ABOUT THE HOLES THAT YOU POUR FLUID INTO?

TISK TISK TISK.

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Jeff, rest peacefully, my friend. I don't want to hammer you, but I will if I must. Fair warning for you. You fellas ought to learn to be more polite on the Usenet.

I couldn't agree more, ma'am.

Painful as it sounds, it's the truth, I'm confused.

If you think an ounce will fill the transmissioin, it's already full. Even the brake reservior is full if all it can hold is another ounce.

And a 50/50 mix of synthetic transmission fluid? What's up with that? There's no point. If you can't drain and fill completely with synthetic, refill with regular trans fluid and call it a day.

That's all I'm saying. Well, since you asked, postinig the results of the testing here for archival purposes is a bit misguided too. But that's another rant that I'll save.

So your additives are lower than average (K, Ca, B), while wear particles are higher than average (Al, Cr, Fe, Pb, Sn, except Cu).

Either the transmission design stinks or the dino ATF isn't up to the task (at *only* 25K miles for a lifetime fluid ;) ;) ;)). I'd glad you're going with Mobil-1 fully synthetic. See if after another 20K miles your wear counts lower. Good luck!!

rages from a Toyota automatic transmission]

This tell you only changed half the fluid, not all of it. Why did you do that?

Some factory car manuals tell you to disconnect a transmission line at the radiator, put a rubber hose on it so you can run it to a drain pan. Start the engine and let it run until the fluid stops. Turn the engine off and add

3 or 4 quarts and run the engine again. Do this several times until you see clean fluid. Reconnect the transmission line add fluid and idle the engine and recheck fluid and fill as necessary. Changing your transmission fluid this way is the same as a power flush you would pay about $100 for at an oil change station. Also doing it this way changes all the fluid in the transmission including what's in the torque converter.

I learned about this method after paying $99.95 to the Vavoline oil change station. The transmission shifted much better. When I was talking about it at work one of the guys told me to do it as I wrote above. He got it from his factory Volvo manual. Every time my transmission starts to act up, I change the fluid and it works fine again. My transmission has 186,000 miles on it and counting with out ever being rebuilt.

Richard W.

25K is a little low. Transmission fluid only needs to be changed every 60K, on late model cars anyway.

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John, I can appreciate your unorthodox approach to transmission fluid, but I am returning to the fundamentals, namely following the manufacturer's advice to use the OEM ATF.

In response to what I've read at BobIsTheOilGuy.com, I decided to give Mobil 1 ATF a chance, so I've had an even mixture of Toyota T-IV and Mobil 1 ATF in the car for 3 weeks now, but my shifting has not been an improvement over the prior 100-percent T-IV makeup of the ATF.

I'm very happy with the choice I made to use a very high quality, non-API certified 0w-30 synthetic motor oil in my engine, and I'm glad I veered from the OEM's recommendation there, but veering from the OEM's recommendation for ATF has not been as successful. I gave it a fair try, but the Mobil 1 has not improved my shifting over the T-IV. Actually, the shifting was better with T-IV.

To answer someone's question, I arrived at the 50/50 mixture of T-IV and Mobil 1 by simply doing a drain-and-refill of the pan, but to return things to the OEM-specified T-IV condition, I'll be doing an at-home ATF oil cooler hose flush later this week. The D.I.Y. flush will remove more of the Mobil 1 than a simple drain and fill. Newbies can read how the flush is done in my alt.autos.toyota thread titled "Simple procedure for Transmission Flush" which I posted a month or two ago.

Agree whole heartly. The OP has some automotive procedures to learn enough on.

Jason

Quote:

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Now fellas, don't be so hard on the Chinese.

All the Chinese folks I've met have been wonderful, wonderful people :-)

Whether they're Buddhist, Christian, or Hindu, all the Chinese folks I've met have been great folks. It's always a pleasure to interact with Chinese-Americans, online and in person.

In America, as long as you're friendly, you're accepted, no matter what your ethnicity, religious belief, color, sexual preference, or creed.

I suspect that you will not be so happy with your choice to use non-API-certified motor oil if your car's MIL illuminates to indicate P0420 and the need for a $1000 + catalytic converter that is not covered by the emissions performance warranty due to the use of non-API-certified oil.

Jeff -

Obviously there's some type of OCD at work here that few of us fully understand. Better just to let Built_Well play with her fluids, send them off for analysis and post the results here, and if the transmission is ruined it will only serve to teach a valuable lesson and help some struggling dealer or transmission shop somewhere.

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Ray, the non-API-certified oil I'm using and will be using is super high quality. In fact it's of much higher quality than many, many API-certified oils. Most have probably not heard of RLI's Bio-Syn, but I'm sure you've heard of Amsoil. Amsoil has been around since at least the 1970's. Amsoil even sponsors car races that are televised nationwide. Did you see Amsoil's sponsorship of a car race last summer on NBC television?

Most of Amsoil's oils are not API certified, but they also sell a line of oils that is API-certified called the XL line. Lots of lube shops use it in their customers' cars. And, as I mentioned, the oils they sell that are not API-certified are of higher quality than many, many oils from companies that are API-certified.

By the way, there are some folks on the BobIsTheOilGuy.com discussion board that use RLI Bio-Syn in their street-legal Maybachs and Ferrari's. Wish I could afford that kind of heavy metal. Of course, when it comes to reliability, Toyota probably still beats Maybach and Ferrari.

Your $1,000 catalytic converter comment is a valid concern. But Amsoil's SSO 0w-30 motor oil meets the API spec of 800 ppm phosphorous (or is it 850?). So this oil will not poison the catalytic converter with too much phosphorous and/or zinc. I mentioned this in an old thread from a year or two ago. The same applies to RLI Bio-Syn 0w-30.

I tell ya, Ray, my Camry's engine runs so quietly and smoothly with RLI Bio-Syn 0w-30 (it's available at RenewableLube.com). I've never heard my motor run so quietly, even with the very high quality Pennzoil Platinum

5w-30 I used in the car for a year, and with the Mobil 1 oil I used. (I'm not a big fan of Mobil 1 oil--love their filters but their oil occasionally shows inexplicably high iron levels in UOAs.)

Anyway, I'm going to get that RLI Bio-Syn oil analyzed in a month or two and compare its report to the report I posted on my used Pennzoil Platinum. Blackstone-Labs.com will do the analysis again--great company. It will be an interesting comparison because the Pennzoil went 5,000 miles and 6 or 7 months, but the RLI Bio-Syn will go 7,000 miles, 9 months, and it has also gone through the harsh conditions of winter, which the Pennzoil did not.

Ray, you ought to try synthetic oil sometime :-) I can't believe you've never once tried synthetic, I'm amazed how good Pennzoil Platinum is, and it's only $20 for a 5 quart jug at Walmart. Also, my AutoZone right now has a sale on 5 quarts of Castrol Edge 5w-30 and 10w-30 that includes a $6.49 Bosch oil filter for just $29.99 for both oil and filter. The AutoZone sale began July 30 and will end August 26.

I'd buy some of that Castrol Edge if I weren't about to buy some Amsoil once my current run of RLI Bio-Syn is completed later this month or early next month.

RLI, Amsoil, Red Line, Royal Purple...they're all great oils.

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Mark, don't you think Jews and Christians should get along? I do. However, comments like that from you will only serve to alienate you from the larger public.

Let me tell you what I think. I think all religions are cults, but from a scientific, sociological perspective, the smaller the religion is, the more cultish it tends to be.

Whether a belief system is called a "religion" or a "cult" or a "myth" really doesn't matter because, as democracy-supporting individuals, we all think it's everyone's right to believe whatever they want, whether we think it's a myth, a religion, or a cult. From my viewpoint, "myth," "cult," "religion" are all pretty synonymous terms.

Where did this creep into the picture?? Kosher ATF?

And which is which (dino vs. synthetic)?

I've had this discussion many times before. IMHO, the folks at Toyota know more about Toyotas than Bobistheoilguy or Redline or Amsoil or you or me.

I am not anti-synthetic oil and use it in some of my vehicles. I am against the use of non-API certified oil in vehicles where the automaker specifically states that API certified oil of a certain grade be used.

Non API certified oil is fine in vehicles without cats or for people who own Ferraris and Maybachs that don't mind spending thousands of dollars on cats or don't care if their car is out of compliance with emissions requirements.

BTW, the fact that someone is willing to spend money on a Ferrari or Maybach has nothing to do with that buyer's knowledege of automotive technology.

This is how Blackstone-Labs.com interpreted my results for the used ATF fluid:

"Thanks for the note about the make-up oil that you used. We don't see that the [1 ounce of] Mobil 1 ATF affected anything, and for a factory fill, wear looks pretty good. All of the wear metals that are above average should improve now that this oil has been changed out. Our universal averages show typical wear from a Toyota automatic transmission after an oil run of ~20,000 miles. We see that you're interested in extended use and we're all for it. Try 35,000 miles next time. The TAN read 1.9, which shows some acidity in the oil, though not all oils start out with a TAN of 0.0."

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Built_Well wrote on July 30, 2009: