Valvoline MaxLife Full Synthetic ATF - Instead of Toyota WS

Your right alftoy I went and looked at the selections again today. The Valvoline "import" ATF does not say Max life on the container. Neither do the others. The only one with Max Life on the container is the "multi vehicle".

 

So what's the latest on this. I thought I used the MaxLife Full Syn ATF in my daughter's 2007 some years ago but it isn't in my maintenance log so now I'm unsure. My 2007 needs a change now and I want to know if y'all have had good luck with it.

 

No knowledge of he differences. My experience is this: I use Toyota's fluid for the CVT. I did it shortly after I obtained the car - 70 K miles, then around 180 K miles. Due again now with over 360 K miles. Both previous changes the fluid looked great.
However, during my second change I also changed a fellow's Prius CVT fluid. They had only 70 K miles. I had to talk them into it because I felt they needed to know how to do it and both cars were in the same common shop on lifts ($5 for the morning use.) In any case, their fluid was nearly black - oops.
So take what you will from this semi-singular example. I will pay the extra for Toyota simply because it has worked so well for my car.
I

 

I wouldn't hair-split over a few bucks*, with multi-grand transaxle in the crosshairs. While you're picking up Toyota ATF WS at dealership you can get replacement washers for fill/drain bolts.

* Is the aftermarket stuff even cheaper? Up hear the ATF WS is about $11 CDN per liter. Always use freshly opened bottles btw (Toyota recommendation).

 

All fluids will experience thermal breakdown and age contamination. IMHO; if your going to keep the car for the long haul - ALL fluids should be replace at least every 10 years or 100K miles (cheap insurance). In my experience, black, dark brown AFT would indicate thermo break-down; but you'll need to sent it out for analysis to confirm. The color change alone should indicate something to anyone. Life-time fluid? I think not.

YMMV

 

In my 25-years of maintaining our Toyota's, I've never used anything except Toyota transmission fluid....I've even seen it for sale on Amazon but I just buy some when I'm at the dealer eye-balling the new vehicles.

Some say aftermarket is good enough...but my favorite Toyota Mechanic, Ahmed "The Car Care Nut" advises against it....he also always uses only Toyota fluids.

 

Toyota very explicitly advised against using anything other than Toyota ATF WS. Before the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork, that's the ONLY fluid they absolutely advocate for, and they don't publish a service interval for changing it.