Mercon LV holds up just fine, it just tends to darken/discolor in a (relatively) short amount of time. In my Fusion's 6F35, Valvoline MaxLife and Mercon LV both seem to darken in pretty much the same amount of time. By 25,000 - 30,000 miles, both turn sort of dark "grape kool-ade" colored. The color of the fluid, however, has absolutely zero to do with the remaining life in the fluid. I have no doubts I'd be able to run the stuff for longer, and have the fluid hold up fine.. but I don't. The drain & fill is more about the contaminants than the fluid.
Having said that, I've run more Valvoline MaxLife ATF fluid in my Fusion than Mercon LV, and I find it to be an excellent replacement for the MC stuff, for less $$
Originally Posted by pbm
Originally Posted by VeryNoisyPoet
Looking good! Out of curiosity, what is the factory recommended interval for changing ATF in the Fusion?
If I'm not mistaken it's every 150K....WOW....imagine what that UOA would look like.
I changed the FF in the 6F35 in my Escape at 16.5K ...I had planned on going about 30K between changes but may do it at 20 or 25K after seeing that it continues to shed metals long after break-in. I used Castrol Full Synthetic which is Mercon LV licensed...I added a bottle of LG Red as well.
The lab report list the tranny as an 'Aisin' 6F35....I'm pretty sure it's a Ford/GM unit and not made by Aisin.
You're correct - the Aisin trans in the Fusion is the TF-80 6-speed trans. The 6F35 is a GM/Ford co-effort, and is unrelated to Aisin.
And yeah, you're also right about the recommended 150,000 mile fluid interval from Ford.. I don't even want to think what the UOA would look like. Also, I would imagine that the fluid that came out at the end of that 150,000 miles would look like the cover of Spinal Tap's "Smell the Glove' album. How much more black could it get? None... none more black.