Made the mistake of choosing to use Mercon SP last month when doing the transmission pan conversion.

Yesterday when I swapped my radiator and was topping up the transmission—and made a dumb mistake that let out more than I intended to—and ran out of Mercon SP, guess what?! No one in northern Utah has any, and I have to wait 5 days for it to arrive from an online order

Please, don’t be a numbskull like me: just use the ZF Lifeguard 6. It will be much easier to obtain in a pinch. And not any more expensive in the long run.

That is all. Carry on.

 

So because you did not keep a spare quart on hand like everyone else would it is a bad idea to use it? Just add Lifeguard 6 since you can find it locally, it's the same stuff. I myself can not find Lifeguard 6 around here anywhere, glad you can.

 

I did have 2 qts left from the case I bought for the pan swap, but it wasn’t enough to get me to that sweet drip-drip that signals full. (And I already copped to screwing up )

I’m pretty confident that during business hours, I could have hit one of the two Rover dealerships within an hour of home to get a LG6 bailout, BPUtah, or had no less than 3 other options of my regular online shops overnight me some—I would have paid any price because I intended to be on the road Mon., but now I’ll be sitting around until Wed. I couldn’t find anyone who could get me SP fast—maybe I didn’t look hard enough (I did).

But I hear you: you’re in the opposite scenario. And others might be as well. I’ll amend the sensation title: For the love of god… use whatever you can get easily 😁

Of the two choices, LG6 or SP, I did my research—probably even gave a lot of weight to your advice in favor of the SP—and thought I had considered all the angles and chose carefully. Even had extra, as one should. But this was the scenario I didn’t anticipate, I guess, and didn’t read anyone making this point about being left high-and-dry in a pinch.

Ultimately, I don’t regret listening to the sage advice and going the SP route, just pissed about the difficulty getting it and felt like it was food for thought for anyone facing the decision. Of course, I probably need less than 1 qt.—and like a good boy, I ordered 3 additional.

And if you like humiliation, go ahead and call a few Ford parts departments. They will just be dumbfounded why you won’t use the Mercon LV per some technical bulletin. Yes, I’ve read it, but reasons, Ford… reasons.

 

Equivalent, or same exact? I don’t remember people saying “just go ahead and mix LG6 and SP.” But if so that’s great to know now. Though… having just gone through the effort of the multi-change flush, it sure would make my OCD skin crawl knowing I had some swapped spit in there for the next however many years of service this LR3 will last.

 

They are the exact same specification, only the color is different. So you can mix them. But yes, I get the OCD thing... lol

 

Appreciate all the advice you spread around the forum, @DakotaTravler!

 

FWIW, I still have 7 qts. of trans fluid on the shelf from when I did my (now dead) Disco II over 10 years ago. Big believer in keeping extra fluids on hand… though it’s probably time to let those bottles go 😢

 

But if you get rid of them, a month after doing so you will see a Disco II in a lot and buy it.

 

Yep—haha!