Tranny fluid

[Art Garcia]

I just recently changed over to synthetic engine oil.

Ive heard you should change it every 8k or so miles.

Would you recommend that? I read on here that someone

changed their synthetic every year regardless of the mileage.

I got 150k and the ST feels better than ever. Now Im considering

changing the tranny fluid to synthetic. Any recommendations?

 

[Johnny O]

The original tranny fluid is a semi synthetic anyway. You could change it to Mobil 1 ATF if you find a shop with a flush machine that will let you bring in your own fluid.

 

[Richard L]

Arturo,

I have a 2008 Mercedes Benz that comes from the factory with Mobil-1 synthetic oil and only requires oil changes once per year or 13K miles. Keep in mind that the Mercedes holds 9 quarts of oil, so that means that it has about 50% more oil than most conventional V6's.



I used Mobil-1 in both of my Sport Tracs and changed it every 5K-6K miles. I feel that it was sooner than it needed to be changed, however I wanted the comfort to know that I had a safety margin if I got busy and went beyond the 6K miles. 8K miles is a good change interval but I personally would not push it past 10K miles between changes.



Also remember that you have to use a high quality oil filter to go with the extended oil change intervals.



I also had my transmissions flushed and 100% synthetic Mercon-V fluid put in the transmission. It made a very noticable improvement in the shifting of my 2001 Sport Trac with 33K miles on it. My 2003 only had 21K miles and there was no noticable difference. I think the old fluid in the 2001 was pretty much burnt up and showed the big improvement, while the 2003...not so much.



...Rich