Honda CVT HCF 2 Fluid non oem fluids

[CharBaby]

I have and will continue to use Castrol Transmax CVT fluid in the 2015 Civic & 2015 Altima with good success and I am going to do it again soon in the Altima.

Soon has arrived and I just D&F the '15 Altima CVT fluid again a couple of weeks ago using Castrol Transmax CVT Fluid. Feels good!

 

[Aaron’13]

Ok I've long lost count of the number of times I've heard people claim OEM fluids are better than aftermarket because they designed the transmission blah, blah, blah. That may make sense on its surface but it's not necessarily true once you understand how the process of formulating a fluid works.
What auto manufacturers typically do is provide fluid specs to a 3rd party company that specializes in making lubricants. In the case of the HCF-2 fluid, it's either made by Idemitsu or Eneos. Most of the process of formulating and manufacturing the fluid is done by those 3rd party companies. There's no reason why Honda has to commit time, capital and human resources towards developing its own lubricant when it can just contract it to a company that specializes in lubricants, has all the talent and research to more than meet Honda's minimum specs. Also keep in mind that Honda pressures these companies to keep the cost of the fluid as low as possible since they want to maximize the markup when they sell it to dealers, shops and consumers. Parts and fluids are a major revenue source for auto makes. So they don't necessarily use the top quality materials. Just enough to meet the minimum requirements they've deemed sufficient for the transmission.

It is also not hard for a lubricant company to take an OEM fluid and work out all its physical and chemical properties. Not only that but they can even figure out its composition to a great degree of detail. They can almost make an identical clone of the OEM fluid if they wanted to do that. My opinion is that they often improve on the OEM fluid because they don't have the same price constraints that auto manufacturers have to deal with (that's a whole different issue that I don't want to go down into).

Just to be clear, I'm not knocking OEM fluids at all. I just think people get blackmailed into paying the high prices for OEM fluids (btw I think Honda's prices are in the more reasonable camp) because they think an aftermarket fluid will grenade their transmission.

 

[Revving2Redline]

Ok I've long lost count of the number of times I've heard people claim OEM fluids are better than aftermarket because they designed the transmission blah, blah, blah. That may make sense on its surface but it's not necessarily true once you understand how the process of formulating a fluid works.
What auto manufacturers typically do is provide fluid specs to a 3rd party company that specializes in making lubricants. In the case of the HCF-2 fluid, it's either made by Idemitsu or Eneos. Most of the process of formulating and manufacturing the fluid is done by those 3rd party companies. There's no reason why Honda has to commit time, capital and human resources towards developing its own lubricant when it can just contract it to a company that specializes in lubricants, has all the talent and research to more than meet Honda's minimum specs. Also keep in mind that Honda pressures these companies to keep the cost of the fluid as low as possible since they want to maximize the markup when they sell it to dealers, shops and consumers. Parts and fluids are a major revenue source for auto makes. So they don't necessarily use the top quality materials. Just enough to meet the minimum requirements they've deemed sufficient for the transmission.

It is also not hard for a lubricant company to take an OEM fluid and work out all its physical and chemical properties. Not only that but they can even figure out its composition to a great degree of detail. They can almost make an identical clone of the OEM fluid if they wanted to do that. My opinion is that they often improve on the OEM fluid because they don't have the same price constraints that auto manufacturers have to deal with (that's a whole different issue that I don't want to go down into).

Just to be clear, I'm not knocking OEM fluids at all. I just think people get blackmailed into paying the high prices for OEM fluids (btw I think Honda's prices are in the more reasonable camp) because they think an aftermarket fluid will grenade their transmission.

Redline sister company is Kendall/ConocoPhillips whom I believe makes the Honda HCF2 fluid.