OEM vs After Market - wires & trans fluid

From all I've heard I'd only use Chryslers fluid and filter. I have and my '95 LH's transmission is still fine. If you do it yourself you're saving up front anyway.

Any good quality ignition wires is what I use.

-Chryslers electricity is standard !

I would at least use a major name brand licensed ATF+4 - IOW - *NOT* Walmart's in-house Super-Tech brand. But that's just me. Technically, anything that is licensed should be OK - I just draw the line at not using low end brands.

2nd gen. LH cars are coil-over plug - no ignition wires (other than the low voltage input wires to fire the coils).

Correct as the Super Tech says ATF+4 on the front but only mentions 7176 (+3) on the back. The number 9602 is nowhere to be found on the bottle.

Mopar ATF+4 is available at Wal-Mart

Not everywhere. Have you checked your local store lately? I ask because it *was* there a year or two ago, but then people started posting on forums that it was disappearing - at least from some WalMarts. I know it disappeared from the one where I am several months ago.

hmmmm last time i changed it that's where i got it but yeah that was last year. guess i'll have to check it out.

Thanks for all the opinions men. I appreciate it. But I sure as hell would like to know what's in Mopar Type 9602 that makes it different from everyone else. I just got home after making the changing the fluid and filter. I left my mechanic friend laughing as I heard him tell me I have "an illness" for insisting I use only that fluid. I bought 5 quarts 'cause the service manual said I'd need 4.5, Followed the manual and after 5 quarts.... I just hit the add marker. I left the car at my friend's and took one of his 'cause I can't get Mopar 'til Monday morning. Now I have to drive 25 miles back to his house to finish filling the pan ... with 100% pure MOPAR.

Being a frugal guy - generally considered prone to thorough analysis before making significant purchases or taking action that may increase risk - it's out-of-character to simply accept this "requirement" and not have an explanation. Hence... the horse laughter from my friend. Doesn't set well with me!

Surely SOMEONE has a technical answer. Though someone said "technically" it was OK to switch to a high quality brand, the implication is... MOPAR is better. Why? What's in the stuff. And exactly how do I know one brand is "higher quality" than another where this Type 9602 stuff is concerned. Yeah I'm a little miffed. I'll get over it. I'd like to tell this guy Monday "Laugh no more, Jack ass. Here's why it's different." Or... hand him back his keys and admit I made a mountain out of a mole hill; there is no difference.

Tell him it's semi-synthetic and is way more stable than its predecessor ATF+3. Also tell him that if he is one of those that has fallen for the industry lie and puts Dexron 3 and an additive in Chrysler transmission that are supposed to get ATF+4, he has likely destroyed some good transmissions.

All the fluids must meet a "spec" or several "specs", such as a viscosity spec at different temps, some kind of wear spec, and probably several others. But no spec or group of specs can cover every single property of a substance as complex as oil. It is entirely possible that there is something important to Chrysler engineers that simply is not covered by any existing ASTM or ASE or whoever's specs. So they spec it as best they can under existing specs and others make stuff that meets them but that doesn't mean it is 100% identical to the way Chrysler actually orders/specs the stuff they buy. It's like people, you can specify that you want a "person" that's got an IQ of 100, has two arms, two legs, head, skin color of some "skin chip", a particular hair color, a weight between 150 and

175 pounds and male. And someone can ship you such a person and it may not be anything near what you were expecting once you put "it" in service. Or imagine trying to write a specification for Ketchup such that what you get is just like Heinz rather then like Del Monte. You'd be lucky to just get something that's more or less ketchup if you depended on *just* the numbers, but that's what the oil is like.

Well=85. I=92m grateful for hearing your opinions but, frankly, I=92m still left hollow. Contrast to a human being isn=92t appropriate because one=92s =93specs=94 include intangible, qualitative measurements of a person. Thus, the measuring instrument changes with the human being.

A better example would be medications. Most people are concerned enough about their health that they want to make sure the medicines they take meet a certain standard for effectiveness and purity. Without that, pharmacists and drug companies would have a wilder field day than they do now. The MAJOR criterion for generic drugs is that the prove as effective as the original; that must be proven to the FDA before it=92s granted permission to sell an item as a substitute for, say, Plavix. The maker of that drug is facing that very hurdle now for

2011. It=92s coming; there are effective blood thinners as effective as Plavix and that=92s why they are going to be permitted to be sold.

Type 9602 ATF +4 may well have something in it that others don=92t but it has to be an =93active ingredient=94 for it to be significant to the task of lubricating that transmission. Though the standards for weights and measures =96 viscosity and temperature range =96 may not be as stringent as those imposed by the FDA for drugs, I=92m pretty sure there are standards for insuring trans oils that get labeled for use in one transmission or another. Thank makes them liable to suit if they fail. I don=92t think manufactures are willing to do that today.

Perhaps a short cut to all this might be to look at what Chrysler has to say about warranties and their MOPAR ATF +4. I don=92t know since my car is out of warranty but, does Chrysler reject warranty claims purely on the basis that MOPAR ATF +4 was not used? If they do, that would be a strong case for the belief there is something significantly different about their fluid. If they don=92t=85 the horse laughter was probably justified and I=92m a fool for paying such a premium.

What=92s Chrysler say about such use under warranty?

Chrysler has to license their use of the name ATF+4. You'd think that they would confirm in some way that the fluid is comparable in the ways that matter before they license the name to the manufacturer or marketer. That to me would imply that it could not be used to disallow a warranty claim. But I'm only working from common sense, not from how our legal system works.

Well, you could avail yourself of a copy of SAE Technical Paper

982674, published in 1998, and wherein Chrysler Material Standard 9602 is referenced.

friction and shudders is the biggest reason they went to this fluid

by the way you could just provide the OP with a hyperlink.....

Well, you could avail yourself of a copy of SAE Technical Paper

982674, published in 1998, and wherein Chrysler Material Standard 9602 is referenced.

I could have, if I'd had it handy...my copy is on my hard drive. The OP can Google, too.

There are a couple of different points here --

First, you'd expect that anything meeting Chrysler's spec would work, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that there's a higher failure rate with others. I don't have either the background or the equipment to actually test the fluids, and transmissions are expensive, so I figure it's safer to just believe it.

Second, you've also got the Dexron + a bottle of magic juice that will convert Dexron to ATF+4. Here, first I'm very leery of anything that'll take something that's got one additive package that gives it one set of characteristics, and then adding a second package that'll change those characteristics. That sounds a lot like something that might meet the specific requirement at specific pressures and temperatures, but might do something altogether weird elsewhere. Also, I expect there is some range in the spec for Dexron, too -- so a bottle of magic juice that made one brand of Dexron meet Chrysler's spec might well not make another brand do it.

All told, I'll be a coward.

Interesting paper. Looks like the Chrysler 7176 fluid was crap, no wonder they had so many transmission problems. Their new fluid looks pretty darn good.

Me personally - I've read on various LH car forums *way* too many real-life horror stories of what Dexron plus the additive do to our transmissions.

Or you can use a wonderful site called "Let me google that for you."