Seems like the Japanese UOA's usually show higher wear metals?

[Jim 5]

Mike,

I think fill for life is more legitimate today than it was 10 years ago. The key word here is "more". It's hard to say yet, but we're going to find out soon. For example, the e46 (1999 -2005 BMW 3 series) are one car I know of that has a fill for life transmission (manual and auto). We are going to start to see how long these babies are lasting without fluid changes. Time will tell I guess because this is a relatively new phenomenon.

In the mean time, I don't see any point getting the short end of the fill for life stick once I'm out of warranty. Plus, I enjoy car maintenance...and usually wish I had more cars to maintain. Doing a little extra maintenance is fun for me.

The point I was making is that people would be better off if a reasonable transmission maintenance schedule became more advertised and understood. I guess the oil companies don't advertise it because they generally have no control over the trans fluids used by the quicky lube/dealership, and because most people won't attempt a trans fluid change themselves.

 

[The Critic]

"Fill-for-life" transmissions are not a new phenomenon at all, my father's '92 Toyota Previa does not call for an automatic transmission service under normal service. And factory fill was Dexron II.

Toyota hasn't recommended transmission service for years. They've only recommended a transmission service (pan drain only, no filter change) at 30,000 miles if used under towing, or more recently, 60,000 miles.

At the same time, consider that most Toyota dealerships bundle a transmission fluid drain and fill with their 30/60/90k service package anyway, so a good # of these transmissions get serviced nonetheless. But quick lubes are fairly good about using a "compatible" fluid

and recommending services about every 30-50k miles, but not all customers suck up to it.

 

[Cutehumor]

higher wear metals in Japanese UOA engines??

Have you been looking at the UOA's for the past several years? All the Japanese engines wear less..no wonder they last so long. Toyota and Honda are the champs with the low wear. The only Japanese engine that produced high wear is the Honda 3.5L with the copper, but it doesn't seem to harm anything.

 

[biomed_eng_2000]

Who has bigger sumps? German or Japanese cars?

With two identically wearing engines but one with a larger sump, the one with the larger sump would show smaller wear numbers due to the wear metals being diluted within the larger oil volume, correct?

 

[Gurkha]

Apprarently myriads of Toyota Hi Lux diesels, Land Cruisers gas and diesels, many Acoords, Civics, Subarus, Nissan with high mileage, my own high mileage Mazda Protege with 170,000 miles, my current still running Accord V6 with 525000 miles without rebuild all break the theory of high metal with Japanese UOA, I have seen more BMW, Audi, VW with blow by than even US cars, among German cars, only MB has the distinction of low wear, specially their legendary old OM616/617 diesels which even few Japanese cars can surpass.