Valvoline MaxLife Full Synthetic ATF - Instead of Toyota WS

This is one of my go-to online Toyota parts stores. I believe they will price match (and beat) other competitors. Alas they seem to only sell a bulk drum of some sort:

Conicelli Toyota Categories Page | Conicelli Toyota of Conshohock

 

Your neighbor must be a Bitog fan they love that stuff over there. Seems to be a very good product and many people use it on many different Toyota platforms and lots of G2s so go ahead and use it should work great. I have been using a synthetic aftermarket trans fluid since the day I bought my 07 new. Still got it still running great.
In 2007 they would have burned me at the stake here for doing it if they could have found me but here I am going on 13 years later still waiting for my trans to blow up as I was promised.

 

Thanks for sharing!

Have you changed it since the first early change? (The big question: Was the 1st drain and fill of the synthetic aftermarket fluid contaminated like WS is on first change as reported here)? If not then I’d say you’ve found a winner...

IIRC you’re using the Redline D6... (Rolling the dice on that one)....

 

Hey, not too shabby memory!

Is a Transaxle fluid "flush" possible? | Page 3 | PriusChat

 

@edthefox5, I know a company that sells the D6, that you can drain it out and return it, (on your dime), and they will send you a replacement for free. (Will let you know, if you don’t mind sharing how it looked when/if you drained it)....

 

Interesting if you snoop around the Redline website you end up on a Phillips 66 website. It’s a Phillips 66 subsidiary it seems. Then if you snoop around there they make Group II, Group III, and Process oils. Supposedly they are using Group IV in their oil and ATF products, maybe they get it from Exxon Mobil?.....

 

Just read Ashland and Valvoline are separate entities as of 2017! My apologies for not keeping up to date!

 

The first change was at 5,000 miles from bought new. The WS fluid was pretty black as expected as the initial wear all happens in that
time frame. I changed it again at 35,000 miles and the fluid looked pretty good not dark at all. I changed it again at 80,000 miles and it looked perfect like brand new so in my opinion if you change it at the initial wear mileage it should really never need changing again.
Its a fantastic piece of engineering this trans. As far as fluid choices its really just a choice of what kind of GL level of oil quality you desire.
For me since its a rare occasion to address trans maintenance and I usually drive a new car at least 10 years I went with the best I could buy.

Buy the way I didn't "roll the dice" I pulled multiple Lubeguard UOA's on that replacement trans fluid. There in the trans sticky's. They looked exactly like I expected spectacularly good wear numbers with the tan starting to creep up.

Just get that heavy initial break in wear out of there. I have done that to all my cars bought new. Have never have had any trans issues
or repairs. Fluid and filter change. No filter in a G2 though.

The few virgin G3 trans fluid pulls I have seen on this site look horrible. The G2 trans is easy on fluid the G3 trans is wicked hard on the fluid based on the pictures I have seen. Or at least some large amount of break in going on in a G3. I have not seen post break in replacement fluid pics 40,000 miles later on a G3. Nothing at all on the G4.

 

Sorry for the misrepresentation!

I was going by my memory, which with age hasn’t been as reliable, that you were the person using Redline D6. I did not mean you were gambling on your choice one bit. I was taking a gamble that my memory was correct!

Searching your posts I found your reference to using it, but that was not the post I think I remember from. A much older one I think.....

(I was really hoping you swapped it out as soon as you got the car home. Then subsequent changes had no wear evidence at all).

As promised, FCP Euro sells the quart and gallon sizes. As far as I’m aware someone returned used oil to them, and they replaced it. You do have to pay to ship it back to them though...

 

That's me I'm the Redline guy. So your roll the dice was pointed at me. Thats ok I'm used to it I get non stop hassle on here about it. Even though there's lots of posters on here using it in there trans.

13 years and 140,000 miles later....

 

Nothing to apologize for. It wasn't well publicized, and I didn't know it until a few months ago, even being from Kentucky. Ashland now makes a bunch of chemicals no consumer is interested in, whereas Valvoline still has stuff that's useful to all of us. As a note, based on edthefox5's wear analysis, I may not need a drain and fill, but if I do, I am likely to use MaxLife. I trust Valvoline enough to use the product they recommend for this car.

 

It’s amazing, the English language. My wife, son and I took UBER home from the airport after our spring vacation trip. The driver was a lady who didn’t speak English well and so I practiced my rusty Spanish. I could get away with “...pero olvido mucho” vs “pero yo olvido mucho” because in Spanish you have to conjugate the verb, and I accomplished the exact same thing because of this.

In my case I should have said “I’m rolling the dice on that one” to express what I really meant. But being lazy, typing on an iPad is a little hard, I shortcut it and completely changed how it could be interpreted....

 

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question or not, but here goes. Has anyone tested the dielectric properties of WS and Maxlife with a megger meter? I was just curious to know if it is even possible to get a value of each and be able to compare them. Thanks in advance !

 

WS has no dielectric properties you will only see that nonsense on this site, WS is an old standard that is used across Toyota car and truck line it’s biggest claim to fame is its its Dex 6 viscosity and it’s longevity which is achieved by a large dose of calcium which mitigates acid buildup which gives it the life time fluid mantle.
WS was used before the Prius was built before the word dielectric was ever mentioned in the same sentence as the word transmission.

Use your Valvoline it will work great in a g2 trans. They love that stuff over at Bitog.
I have used Red D6 in my g2 for going on 12 years. There’s 2 uoa’s over in the trans stickies.

 

Ok, thanks Ed, I bought a megger meter because I have an 07 with a bad trans (613 code) and I thought it would be interesting to see if it would give a reading on oil, but I don't have any WS to test. Sounds like if it will give a value they would probably be virtually the same then correct?

 

Any liquid claiming to be dielectric must be 100% pure with no contamination of any kind. None. Especially anything conductive.

The claim that WS is dielectric is ridiculous on 2 points.

#1---Because after a few miles the trans is contaminated with metal wear. To a casual observer that metal wear makes the fluid darker than if really high wear you will have black fluid which is highly contaminated highly conductive. The G2 trans fluid services the differential which is where the majority of metal wear comes from. Anything Dielectric must be extremely pure.

#2---Why does it need to be dielectric? The windings are heavily coated with extremely tough con-formal coating. The fluid never touches the metal part of the winding. If the winding coating fails and exposes even a pin hole to the metal you will know it real fast as it will be an instant blow out of high voltage to ground and the car will instantly throw a ground fault nag. Its at voltages of 500 volts 3 phase AC and pretty good current. It will find a home.
Doesn't matter what kind of fluid you have in there its smoke hiss boom. We have seen a bunch of blown out windings on the g2 over the years. You really have to beat the crap out of the trans to do that all it takes it very high constant load and low battery state.

The G3 does not suffer from winding blow outs like the G2. G3 have Much more powerful motors much more efficient and they have better batterys and improved the cooling by making the inverter coolant tank separate from the ICE coolant tank so no cross heat sinking there like the G2 and much better cooling of the Invert and trans.

On the G2 trans fluid goes no where near the windings but on the G3 trans fluid is circulated through the windings for better cooling. Again doesn't matter whats the fluid is as the windings are heavily sealed and the metal winding is never ever exposed.

Your really only concerned about GL4 quality when selecting a trans fluid as in a G2 and G3 its strictly a a gear lubricant..
The best trans fluid on the market imho is Redline D6. I have Redline UOA's over in the Trans stickys showing excellent wear numbers..

I have had D6 in my G2 for 12+ years. I run Redline in all my cars I also run there motor oil which is exceptional. Bitog loves Redline too!

But in everyday driving the G2 trans is extremely bullet proof.

I refer you to the excellent Weber Auto School of Prius trans tear downs for more stuff:. Be sure to watch there G3 trans videos also. There all excellent.

Good luck!

 

Makes sense to me! I use the Max Life in everything else that I own with great results, so I will continue to do so in my g2. Thanks for the help, Gary.

 

ski.dive I have a 2010 that I have changed the fluid with WS 3 times since I purchased it at 300K miles. It now has over 350K with no transmission issues so far. I would be willing to change to the Valvoline as a field test. I will video the change and a 20K mile update which I will share on my Ytube channel for all to see. I already have video of the WS changes if anyone needs proof that it has been WS up to this point. I do need to know one thing though. There are several versions of the Valvoline MaxLife synthetic ATF. It seems that your neighbor would be using either the multi vehicle, or Import? Could you let me know which one? Maybe include a photo of the container?

 

Looks to be only one version of Maxlife.

Transmission Fluids - Valvoline™

 

They love that Max Life over at Bitog good stuff your trans should like it.