Nothing fancy just plain old dextron III any brand is fine.Vince

 

Any fluid that meets or exceeds dexron/mercron standards is fine ,

 

CASTROL HERE and that is what ive been told just dont use synthetic

 

I don't see how saving a couple bucks is worth using inferior products in your rather expensive transmission. Everyone claims the store brand is the same stuff as name brand, but from personal experience I can tell you thats often not true with many products.

I work at Advancr Auto - when we recieve shipments, it all comes at once, from all different brands. We recieved one shipment of Advance Auto brand ATF, along with Valvoline ATF. A customer bought the Advance Auto brand, opened it up, and it was clear fluid with a gooey/sticky consistancy. It also smelled terrible, not anything like ATF THe Valvoline brand was fine, no issues at all. We called the company, and their answer was "its fine we just forgot to put the dye in" - yea, along with half the other ingredients as well

I also picked up some advance auto brand Brake Cleaner for my friend, thinking "its the same as CRC", but it totally sucked. It worked, but not nearly as well as other brands like CRC. It came out with hardly any pressure and the can was empty pretty quickly, also didn't do a great job of cleaning.

I can go on and on with examples of the store brand being inferior, believe what you want, but my opinion is a good 80% of it is garbage.

 

well i lied.... I voted Valvoline but I just bought Castrol to put back in my new trans. I'll still stick with my preference towards Valvoline though. Auto Zone just didnt have any in stock.

 

why not synthetic I have purple in my engine and in my rear its time to change my tranny fluid no purple why not ?

 

...ttt

 

RP is synthetic. = dont put in out trans. too many friction modifiers that our bands dont need. they will lead to premature slipping over time

 

so the friction modifiers actually hurt the tranny ? I'm new to the subject its just time to change my fluid thats why I'm askin

 

You have a minimum of two frictions in the A4 that
you care about - or more. The planetary engagement
clutches, the band and the torque converter clutch.

Out of GM these were all selected / spec'd to be all
happy with common DexIII as you'd expect. When
all that was being worked, bet that synthetic ATFs
were not so commonly available, and perhaps not
part of the process.

In the name of fuel economy our 4L60E is controlled
with the bare minimum of presssure applied, based
on a stock motor assumption and backed up with
an adaptive learning for pressure w/ slip. Good thing,
right? Yeah, for your Aunt Mabel's unmodded Z28,
as if. The learning makes your pressure relax when
things are going smoothly and then gets surprised
and slips whilst playing catch-up every unusually
hot day, or event. Computers is stupid.

With adaptation constantly positioning you on the
edge of slip, no wonder you see it occasionally.
And every occasion stands the chance of adding
a little bit more glaze to your clutch surfaces. Or
popping the slip codes.

Anyway, factory frictions and stock output is one
thing. Increase the output, lessen the grab (by
slipperier fluid), maybe fool the airflow with a
voodoo mod or two, and your PCM will not have
the clue to command the -needed- line pressure.
Reduce the TCC clutch radius (one component of
torque), maybe use a set of clutch components
from an OE design that was smaller so as to fit
(but smaller, always comes from a smaller motor
and was designed for less breakaway torque), why
not throw in a non-OEM converter clutch material
system while you're at it (just for fun) and then
depend on adaptation to bring the pressure on up
to compensate for it all? Reliably? Yeh.

Friction modifiers are added to -raise- the friction
of clutch material against the steels. Super. Make
up for some of the problems from small components
and low line pressure per load. But down in the guts
the good ol' bronze bushings of yesteryear have
been replaced by plastic ones on account of it
saved GM a penny and a half per unit. Plastic
bushing on steel shaft looks not so unlike organic
clutch on steel plate, only bushings are not supposed
to have their friction increased. If you take and put
some old-school "super shift magic goo" in there,
formulated before people were so clever as to use
plastic in the powertrain, that's a roll of the dice.
Snake eyes being a chowed bushing that only can
be gotten to by a full teardown.

 

excellent post jimmy. that should be automatic sticky right there on the subject of trans fluid. thanks for all your informative posting.

 

I'm a simple guy so RP or any synthetic is a "slipperyer" ( I made that up ) fluid so that will cause less friction which in turn make the tranny slip overtime especally on hot days ; Yes or no ?

 

...ttt

 

****, im R & R'in my tranny right now, i though you had to have some special blend. Guess not.

NAPA here i come!

TOny.

 

Dropped the pan and put in Amsoil. I really want to flush the entire system with it next year.

 

i've been putting in valvoline high mileage non syntheitc. i've never worked at an autoparts store but have known a few people that have over the past few years.. they said that basically store brands were made by valvoline, etc. but they were a cheaper brand of valvoline. so for that reason i've been using name brands. now that i've read jimmys post about friction modifiers, i kinda wonder about it b/c it says it has more friction mods in it, but my fluid has never looks dark (burnt bands) or anything. the only thing is that my verter has been locking and unlocking quite a bit, i dont think it's the fluid though.

 

In your case (stock) the important thing is to change the fluid about every 30,000 miles or a transmission service every 15,000. If you use synthetic (expensive) such as royal purple you can almost double those figures. By the way all modern transmision fluids have synthetics in them just like all modern motor oils do. The important thing is what has been said that it is dextron III for you GM vehicle. Some other vehicles have different requirements.

Note: a transmission service only relaces about 1/2 of the fluid! where as a transmission flush changes all of it (about 16 quarts i think).

ps: I typically keep a vehicle for 6 or more years and I have never had a tansmission failure in over 30 years due to above practice I believe. However it may also be that i don't flog it to bad.
Hope this help.

 

I voted other. John Deere tractor hydrualic fluid in mine with a hint of some ATF for color only.

Brian

 

? lol

 

I use regular old cheapo napa stuff in my hughes TH400.. and change it on a more then needed basis. Keep fresh fluid in the tranny and there's no need for expensive stuff.. that's what my guy tells me and they've had very good luck.