What sort of ATF and is Merc V synthetic?

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I just bought 2 cars. So, the 1st thing I want to do is change all of the fluids.

#1...99 Corolla. The Owner's Manual (OM) says that the trans uses DeX III.

#2...96 Mercury Villager. The OM says Merc. What the heck, it is actually a Nissan Quest. My Repair Manual (RM) says DeX III.

I had a bunch of MercV and the bottle said that it would work for Merc and DEXIII...so far so good in the Villager.

I go to Napa and the counter guy says that Merc V is synthetic replacement for those? Dat Tru?

What would you use for them?

Also, is it Merc Vee or Merc5?
 
On those vehicles I'd be using either Maxlife ATF (if I felt like spending the money) or Super Tech Automatic Transmission Fluid (if I felt like saving money). Both will work in both vehicles. You don't need a separate additive or different fluids for one of the cars.

MERCON-V was not listed as backwards compatible with DEXRON-III so that is why the two listed fluids were interchangeable at the point your vehicles were built.
 
Mercon V is not necessarily synthetic. Most of them that I've seen are only synthetic blend, and I believe that even the Motorcraft stuff is synthetic blend. That being said, Mercon V IS the replacement for regular Mercon. Ford considers regular Mercon to be obsolete and says that Mercon V supersedes it. So any transmission that originally specified regular Mercon should be able to use Mercon V no problem.

And Dexron III is/was the exact same thing as regular Mercon, which is why you always see bottles of ATF that say "Dexron III/Mercon" or "Dex/Merc" for short. "Dexron" is a registered trademark of GM, and Mercon is a registered trademark of Ford. They literally had different names for the same fluid. So it stands to reason that any transmission that originally specified Dexron III could also use Mercon V.

Now, to further confuse matters, Dexron III is also an obsolete spec. GM replaced it with Dexron VI and says to use Dex VI in all transmissions that originally called for Dex III.

Even though the old Dex III was the same as regular Mercon, Dexron VI is NOT the same as Mercon V.

So, if you want to use a "modern"/latest spec fluid, should you use Mercon V or Dex VI?
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Your call I suppose. Personally, I'd just use a generic "Dex/Merc" fluid and call it a day. There's plenty of selection, from a cheap conventional store brand, to a full-synthetic name brand. They'll all likely work just fine in your vehicles.
 
Originally Posted by kschachn
On those vehicles I'd be using either Maxlife ATF (if I felt like spending the money) or Super Tech Automatic Transmission Fluid (if I felt like saving money). Both will work in both vehicles. You don't need a separate additive or different fluids for one of the cars.

MERCON-V was not listed as backwards compatible with DEXRON-III so that is why the two listed fluids were interchangeable at the point your vehicles were built.



Exactly right here ^^^^

I have Coastal Dex Merc ATF to go in my lady's Camry here in a bit ....
 
I have a couple Fords that take the Mercon V and others that take regular Mercon.

I know they've listed the V as being backwards compatible but I've just decided to go with what the dipstick says and keep them seperate and use Dex/Merc on the older stuff and Mercon V on the newer.




Also there were some different transmissions in the same time frame that had different ATF's spec'ed like the 4R70W transmissions in the late 90's were speced for Mercon V while the 4R100 were speced for regular Mercon, gets confusing.




Anyways to sum up
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I would just go with Maxlife Dex/Merc and make it easy.
 
Originally Posted by kschachn
On those vehicles I'd be using either Maxlife ATF (if I felt like spending the money) or Super Tech Automatic Transmission Fluid (if I felt like saving money). Both will work in both vehicles. You don't need a separate additive or different fluids for one of the cars.

MERCON-V was not listed as backwards compatible with DEXRON-III so that is why the two listed fluids were interchangeable at the point your vehicles were built.


I would just use Supertech Mercon V. Has the Ford certification on it. Maxlife doesn't and it's just suitable for multiple applications. It just makes sense to get the right fluid for the right application.
 
It could just take a regular Dexron III / Mercon in both vehicles here...

My lady's Camry that's a 98 uses Dexron III like the Corolla mentioned...

Though I think you are right in that a Mercon V should be fine too... Ford did back spec Mercon V for older Mercon applications is that correct wolf ??
 
How much (bunch?) Mercon V did you buy Stinky123?

I recently bought a Mercon specced '05 Ford vehicle and read Mercon V is now the stuff to use. Board members blithely suggested getting "a synthetic Mercon V". After looking high and low I conclude there is no synthetic Mercon V.
Synthetic BLEND Mercon V, yes.
I just loaded up on Car Quest brand and Super Tech (Walmart) brand Mercon V.
My 15 year old vehicle's shifting improved noticeably with a drain & fill.

I say go through your stock of Mercon V then get more of whatever you need when the time comes.
 
Mercon V is what my 98 Stang GT is spec'd for. I have used the Carquest stuff from Advance. I would love to find a reasonably priced synthetic alternative but I guess for now, I'll keep using plain ol' Mercon V.
 
I looked into this when I purchased my 4Runner which requires DEX III. I decided to use Mercon V for my Ford's and 4Runner. No problems.
 
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