castrol HM trans fluid

[EricF]

in visited my local walmart today, of course their selection (and quantities) of tranny fluid was scarce.
They had no maxlife. Lots of supertech tho.

They had castrol import ATF. the bottle said it meets nissan matic D (what doesn't?) and J but not K.
my friend's 02 Altima with 130k, needed a tranny fluid servicing.. badly. it has never been done before.

As I started late in the day, and putzed around, I figured I'd take a quick side step and just swap the fluid and not deal with the filter (this time).
I didn't want to mess with the pan, let alone look in there!

So I swapped in roughly 9 quarts, and cheated, topped it off with lubegard red.

since walmart didn't have maxlife, I decided to use the Castrol HM ATF, that meets nissanmatic d, j and k!
So far, after 50miles of driving, it shifts a lot smoother than it did.
Next year I promised myself I'd drop the pan.
the subframe is parked right in the middle of the pan, all the bolts are accessible, I think it was just a lazy moment.

I dunno if the Castrom HM ATF will be as good as maxlife, but at the worst, should be pretty darn close!

 

[AzFireGuy79]

Castrol HM has had some good results on here, mostly in Domestics as import folks usually spring for the Castrol Import. Really as long as the spec of the fluid is correct i see little difference in the various brands out there. For most of my customers I just use ST. It has worked very well in countless cooler line exchanges.

As far as the filter goes, no sweat, get it next time. I think your addition of Lubegard RED was a wise one. That stuff just plain works. Especially in regular ATF.

Maxlife is a synthetic ATF, so service life might be a bit better than Castrol, though even I change redline atf at 30K, knowing it can go much much longer. Gives me something to do. The castrol HM should be able to do 30K without issue. A magnefine would be something to consider as well.

 

[EricF]

cool! Next year I'll take the time to swap the filter too. the car doesn't see more than 10k/year anyway nowadays. A magnafine would've been easy to install on that.. I never even thought of it... I can plumb one in within 10 minutes.

 

[unDummy]

Get the magnefine.
You should drop the pan but probably won't need to change the filter. I usually change the filter at the 10yr/100k simply because there is a seal on the filter that could leak, and to clean the pan magnets. Occasionally you'll find loose bolts on the VB and filter.

 

[calvin1]

I don't know about your specific application but I've had good results with the Castrol HM (green bottle?) in my Ford's E4OD. It even performed better than Mobil 1's universal.

 

[EricF]

Yeah, it is castrol HM in the green bottle.
I'll order a magnafine and install it by next oil change.

thanks for the advice!