I did a drain and fill with Valvoline BLUE regular Dex/Merc last month. Today I got the filter and went ahead with the Valvoline RED but its synthetic. I thought this was what DiscoMikes blog was calling for, but when I re-read it he says Valvoline "HIGH MILEAGE" but I didn't see anything with that label. The RED one does say EXTENDED LIFE but I was wondering if any of you put this synthetic stuff in with your plain, old Dex/Merc. I can always take it back and pick up the blue stuff again but I need to know pretty quick.

 

Really, my paranoia lies with mixing the synthetic with the old school Dex. Are these fluids compatible, or would the transmission have to be completely drained to start using synthetic? Just go pick up the old BLUE label and not have to worry about it?

 

I'm seeing Valvoline "MAXLIFE" everywhere when I search. I suppose this is the non-synthetic version that DiscoMike is talking about? I didn't come across this and I was in 3 different stores. they all stocked the RED MAXLIFE FULLY SYNTHETIC

 

There is only one maxlife DEX/MERC & it is synthetic & you can mix safely with regular, but then you will loose it's maximum potential, you can flush system a couple of times to get close to %80 new fluid, I have used it & I am happy with results,,

 

I have never used "synthetic" anything but companies sure do try to hype it up. I appreciate you responding and will count that as 1 "for" mixing, but I just haven't found a remarkable number of people posting saying that they have done this. I'm sure half or more of forum members here do it, but I haven't received any feedback, except for you. But hey, thanks for responding Bom. I hope to get some more replies confirming similar results as you. I'm sure this is very common and I am being overly anxious about it but I just need more folks to give me the download.

 

even on google only found like 1 thread talking specifically about mixing fully synthetic ATF with regular, and a couple of peeps said that it was cool.


so I'm still not sold

 

Difference between synthetic & conventional is,,
Synthetic oil or ATF. have more uniform (same size) molecules
Conventional , molecules not as uniform (diff size),,
Chemistry in both is very close

 

FWIW,

The last time I changed out the fluid, I refilled with the red bottle Maxlife mixing it with whatever was in there from the last time (might have been blue bottle Valvoline, might have been O'Reilly brand DexIII). I'm guessing that I changed the filter and fluid ~40-50k before the most recent time, so I don't remember what I used then. I'll probably change it out again with the red bottle in another year or so to get the mix closer, but that's far down on my list of important things to do.

 

thanks guys, sounds good. I will go ahead and get started with what I have then.