Originally Posted By: Raybo
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
MolaKule,
Sorry, I should have put my word better. What I said was, the backtrack of recommending D6 for WS on regular automatic transmission, not CVT.
They backtracked to D4 which must be a viscosity decision.
I have a 07 Prius also and since new have used Redline D6 with spectacularly good wear number UOA's. After the first 30K I pulled it and ran a UOA and noticed although wear looked awesome but the Tan was creeping up a tiny bit. So there's where the WS helps a little as it has a calcium pack on board for Tan mitigation but there's a wear factor there too with that pack so its a trade off. Me personally I would prefer to use Redline and get no wear whatsoever change it every 30K.
And this thread is a breath of fresh air by folks who know what there talking about. The Critic has been scaring people for years now over at Priuschat if you don't use WS your Prius trans will short out. WS has dielectric proprieties!!If you don't use WS it will eat the windings!!
Total [censored]! Been on D6 for 80K and car loves it.The prius planetary trans would probably run on mineral oil.
The windings could care less what you use there insulation is extremely strong.Trans fluid doe not bother plastic components either. Modern auto's are loaded with plastic parts and coated wires.
And to the Prius poster change the Invert fluid next its way overdue. The Inverter is very hard on the fluid and conversely the ICE is very easy on the coolant.
Quite frankly, I think it is quite irresponsible of you and others to make recommendations that go against the OEM recommendations.
The aftermarket is known to be very difficult to collect on when it comes to any questionable fluid-related claims. Even if you *know* (or think you do) that the fluid was unrelated to the failure, if there is any doubt that the fluid was involved, the OEMs have been known to play hardball in those situations. Sure, you may be be right, but most users do not have the resources to fight those claims - so you are always better off avoiding those situations to begin with.
The electrical concerns were raised by a few users on Priuschat; I did not make those up myself. With that said, Molakule is likely right with his statements given his background, so I do accept that I may be incorrect on that matter.
However, it doesn't change the fact that while your transmission (and a few others) worked just fine on D6 - it is just a small sample size.
I suspect that you do not have knowledge of the transmission function in the way that you assume. Similarly, you are quite incorrect about the inverter coolant; there is nothing to suggest that the prius inverter is hard on coolant. In fact, there are probably more issues caused by amateurs who fail to correctly bleed the inverter coolant loop after service.
Lastly, for the enthusiast (and any rational consumer), there is little benefit in considering unlicensed aftermarket fluids. Most of the aftermarket fluids on the market were made to benefit the production shops that do not want to stock a wide variety of fluids. The rest of them are boutique fluids that were built to satisfy the theoretical needs of a few users - and are generally made by whole in the wall operations with questionable expertise and technical resources. At the end of the time, the point that I am trying to drive home is that it really isn't worth the risk to be messing around with these aftermarket fluids.