Suitable substitutes for the Toyota ATF-WS transmission or transaxle fluid?

Seriously is that gl4 manual gear lol?

Is this something similar to the maxlife a lot of you guys are running? Only thing that throws me it specifically says (twice) not for cvt and not for hybrid
Valvoline 4L Maxlife ATF Fluid | Bunnings Warehouse

Matt

 

I’m just bright enough to know I’m not bright enough to second-guess Toyota’s very emphatic recommendation, to stick with Toyota Genuune ATF-WS. In a tech bulletin they also recommend to only use freshly opened bottles.

 

2004-2009 MG2 rated at 295 lb-ft
2010-2015 MG2 153 lb-ft.

But torque numbers don’t really matter. The gen3 made better use, and now being able to spin its MG2 7,100 higher than gen2 AND have a ever higher voltage from the inverter with its new step up feature.

 

Toyota says not to use bottles that have been left open, exposed to the air.
They said to make sure you put the cap back on.

 

Redline D6 is a D6 viscosity full synthetic.

Not to many people run anything else but WS here. Maxlife is big over at Bitog though they love that stuff lots of G2's running that over there its good stuff but not synthetic.

Red Line Synthetic Oil. D6 ATF

Google Redline D6 reviews. Its a great product. Used Redline trans fluids for 35 years now. Run in my G2 for 12 years. Whats really a superior product is Redline engine oil its the only oil that will quiet down the solid lifter G2 sewing machine motor. Its the only oil you can feel the difference in your engine. It ain't cheap.

 

Hmm the Maxlife i posted a link to in post #321 is Full Synthetic, according to the bottle anyway

I don't believe the D6 (or redline anything) is readily available in Australia, if it is, its going to be more expensive than genuine!

Out of interest what spec and viscosity is the redline engine oil you speak of that turns off that damn sewing machine?

 

The Toyota hybrid transmissions aren't CVTs (Constantly Variable Transmission) in a traditional sense. The transmission isn't variable, the power applied by the MGs is what's variable. The transmission is really just a gear set -- not unlike an axle or transfer case on a truck.

 

I agree...and genuine stuff is literally only a few $$$ more. Yet another reason to be a bit weary of a used Prius I guess. On the bright side, I'd bet most used Prius have never had the fluid changed because it is supposed to last 'the life of the vehicle' ( yeah right ).

 

Just for a “data point”, up here at least, the Toyota ATF WS is $9.14 (CDN), per litre. Think that’s six something (US) per quart. Maybe cheaper than the alternatives. Every 3~4 years: peanuts.

 

yes your right it’s synthetic I was thinking about another product they talk about on bitog.

 

Apples and oranges: Ed talking about power, Aaron talking about torque. Power is torque ✕ rpm, which means:

... doesn't just mean a hand-wavey "torque doesn't really matter", it means the much more concrete "multiply each motor's top rpm by its torque at that rpm, and get the answer to Ed's post."

The shaft coming in from the engine can be turned at one rpm and torque, and have the final drive out to the axles deliver a different rpm and torque, where if the rpm is reduced the torque is increased by the same factor, and vice versa, and that factor is continuously variable over its range. The power coming out (torque ✕ rpm) equals the power in (torque ✕ rpm) minus the unavoidable losses. That's exactly the behavior that makes something a CVT (and exactly what an axle or a truck transfer case does not do).

The battery (except in a PiP or Prime) is a little buffer for temporary surpluses and deficits but that's just gravy on top of the basic (torque ✕ rpm in) = (torque ✕ rpm out) relationship of the CVT.

The "it's not a (traditional) (real) (pick your favorite adjective) CVT" notion comes from people who have heard of one way of building a CVT (belts and cones, say), and decide to call that way of building one the (traditional) (real) (etc) way, and then say this one isn't a CVT because that's not the way this one's built.

But there isn't just one way to build a CVT. If you build something that gives you (torque ✕ rpm in) = (torque ✕ rpm out) with a continuously variable ratio, you have built one. Toyota built one here.

 

The only thing left on my mind at this stage is that little nag about how sometimes (with engines) if you swap from conventional to synthetic oil late in life it can lead to leaking otherwise i am pretty much sold for trying other potions on the G2 seeing the windings are not bathing in atf and as we all know its a simple and (mostly) bullet proof transmission

Cheers

 

Has much more detergent and protection additives, using black stone oil analysis of unused straight from bottle tap to testing labs.

 

I have a few UOA's in the trans stickies for Redline trans oil. Go with the Max Life many Prius's use it over at Bitog and good reviews.

Really all you need to do is change the trans fluid once on a G2. Its getting that run in wear out that makes the difference I have changed my G2's trans fluid 3 times The 2nd and 3rd were unnecessary not much wear in the fluid but it is a superior fluid so YMMV.

Same for the Inverter fluid. Get that nasty break in out of there and your ok.

I'm at 160,000 miles on Redline trans fluid.

Oh here's photo's of my g2's engine at 160,000 miles running Redline Engine oil. Notice zero wear on the cam journals that's the anti-wear ZDDP pack that's in it.

You get what you pay for:

 

Wish that could only be true with gen 3. I have a gallon of redline d6 ready, at the next meetup this will be going in. My black stone oil change analysis of redline 5w-20 made me a believer.

 

I know something going on in that trans alot of wear.

 

I agree. But my point is that it is simply a gear set, rotating around another gear. None of the complexities of a conventional automatic transmission or conventional CVT with cones and belts.
I'd argue that it is actually quite similar to a truck axle, only operating in reverse. Where a truck axle is a gear set with one input, and two outputs working in unison, the prius transaxle is a gear set with two inputs working together feeding one output. There are no pumps, valves, cones, or belts -- just a gear set in a housing bathed in oil.

 

Except in a PiP or a Prime, there is only one "prime mover" in a Prius, the gasoline engine. The hybrid drive can still be very sensibly thought of as a one-input (engine) one output (to differential and axles) device, like any other car transmission. The fact that there are some electrical parts inside, on that view, is an internal detail of how-it-does-what-it-does. The fact that the battery gives it a small buffer to even out load peaks and valleys is cool, but not critical.

Comparing to a conventional automatic transmission is fun. Those also are usually built with one or more planetary gear sets. You can build a three-speed automatic out of one planetary set; you have to change which part you connect to the gozinta and which part to the gozouta (with clutches) and which part you hold from turning (with a brake band).

Prius does away with the clutches: the gozinta is always the planet carrier, and the gozouta is always the ring.

In the traditional auto tranny, you need your brake bands to be either fully released (free rotation) or fully applied (rotation stopped); trying to 'partly' apply a brake band and just give 'some' resistance to rotation would make a ton of frictional heat and cook the band, and the heat produced would be power irreversibly lost, making the tranny inefficient. (This has its own direct analog in electronics, where it's one thing to use a transistor as a switch, fully on or fully off, but a whole different heat-generating power-losing business if you try to use it to control the current over the range in between.)

Prius got rid of brake bands, but instead, essentially, mounted big permanent magnets around the sun gear and the ring, and they can use electrically-created magnetic fields to 'hold' either one like a brake band, or resist it by a variable amount (unlike a brake band), or 'unresist' it (add a pull in the same direction it's moving—try doing that with a brake band!). Power that gets taken from one component (by resisting it magnetically) isn't irreversibly lost because it can be be returned to the system at the other component (by 'unresisting' it magnetically). And that's how Toyota made a continuously variable transmission out of one planetary gear set and some magnets.

Using magnetic fields of varying strength, they solve the problem of trying to use brake bands in the range between fully applied and fully released, but they would have the same problem one step removed if they used the transistors in the inverter to directly produce currents of varying strength. Naturally, they solve that by only using the transistors as fully on/fully off switches, and pulsing them quickly to get the magnetic field strength they want.

 

Some oil seals on very old cars were made and designed before synthetic oils were around and some didn't cope with thin oils anyway. I have never heard any Toyota since the hybrid era having a problem with either. I change the oil in trans and engine as soon as I buy a car now, always a high spec-ed synthetic replacement. With a used car you never know if it has been driven through flood water (trans) or been changed for a cheaper than Toyota genuine oil even with service history. Just my paranoia maybe but makes sense to me.

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the ICE is absolutely not the sole means of propulsion for a standard Prius. If it were, how would it move while in EV mode? When I Googled "Prius planetary gear animation", this is the first hit. In which it uses the exact analogy I did: that the gears set is similar to a traditional differential, only operating in reverse. It allows two inputs to spin at different speeds to be combined into a single output to propel the car.