OEM vs After Market - wires & trans fluid

2000 Concorde LXI; 108K miles; well maintained

About to changes trans fluid this weekend. Buying Mopar Type 9602 plus
filter and sealant from a Chrysler dealer.

Told my mechanic friend. He thinks I'm foolish for paying the premium
rather than simply buying an after market Type 9602 fluid for
considerably less money. I haven't a good argument for doing so but
sure as hell would like one. Right now, all I can do is comment on the
fact Chrysler seems to have had a history of trans problems (my 1995
did too) and a lot of chatter focused upon fluid so.... I'm simply
playing it safe. However, it grates me that I can't be specific; just
what the hell 's in Mopar Type 9602 that someone elses 9602 doesn't
have?

Next week, it's ignition wires. I've got some time to gather opinions.
I'm close to a Summit Racing store so I thought I'd simply let them
recommend what to use. I'm open. If I should stick to Mopar, would
appreciate knowing reason why.

 

From all I've heard I'd only use Chryslers fluid and filter.
I have and my '95 LH's transmission is still fine.
If you do it yourself you're saving up front anyway.

Any good quality ignition wires is what I use.
-Chryslers electricity is standard ! <

 

I would at least use a major name brand licensed ATF+4 - IOW - *NOT*
Walmart's in-house Super-Tech brand. But that's just me. Technically,
anything that is licensed should be OK - I just draw the line at not
using low end brands.

2nd gen. LH cars are coil-over plug - no ignition wires (other than the
low voltage input wires to fire the coils).

 

He has a 2nd gen. No ignition wires! He can take the money he
would have spent on those and put it to Mopar brand ATF+4!

 

Correct as the Super Tech says ATF+4 on the front but only mentions 7176
(+3) on the back. The number 9602 is nowhere to be found on the bottle.

 

Mopar ATF+4 is available at Wal-Mart

 

Not everywhere. Have you checked your local store lately? I ask
because it *was* there a year or two ago, but then people started
posting on forums that it was disappearing - at least from some
WalMarts. I know it disappeared from the one where I am several months
ago.

 

hmmmm last time i changed it that's where i got it but yeah that was last
year. guess i'll have to check it out.

 

Thanks for all the opinions men. I appreciate it. But I sure as hell
would like to know what's in Mopar Type 9602 that makes it different
from everyone else. I just got home after making the changing the
fluid and filter. I left my mechanic friend laughing as I heard him
tell me I have "an illness" for insisting I use only that fluid. I
bought 5 quarts 'cause the service manual said I'd need 4.5, Followed
the manual and after 5 quarts.... I just hit the add marker. I left
the car at my friend's and took one of his 'cause I can't get Mopar
'til Monday morning. Now I have to drive 25 miles back to his house to
finish filling the pan ... with 100% pure MOPAR.

Being a frugal guy - generally considered prone to thorough analysis
before making significant purchases or taking action that may increase
risk - it's out-of-character to simply accept this "requirement" and
not have an explanation. Hence... the horse laughter from my friend.
Doesn't set well with me!

Surely SOMEONE has a technical answer. Though someone said
"technically" it was OK to switch to a high quality brand, the
implication is... MOPAR is better. Why? What's in the stuff. And
exactly how do I know one brand is "higher quality" than another where
this Type 9602 stuff is concerned. Yeah I'm a little miffed. I'll get
over it. I'd like to tell this guy Monday "Laugh no more, Jack ass.
Here's why it's different." Or... hand him back his keys and admit I
made a mountain out of a mole hill; there is no difference.

 

Tell him it's semi-synthetic and is way more stable than its predecessor
ATF+3. Also tell him that if he is one of those that has fallen for the
industry lie and puts Dexron 3 and an additive in Chrysler transmission
that are supposed to get ATF+4, he has likely destroyed some good
transmissions.

 

All the fluids must meet a "spec" or several "specs", such as a
viscosity spec at different temps, some kind of wear spec, and
probably several others. But no spec or group of specs can cover
every single property of a substance as complex as oil. It is
entirely possible that there is something important to Chrysler
engineers that simply is not covered by any existing ASTM or ASE or
whoever's specs. So they spec it as best they can under existing
specs and others make stuff that meets them but that doesn't mean it
is 100% identical to the way Chrysler actually orders/specs the stuff
they buy. It's like people, you can specify that you want a "person"
that's got an IQ of 100, has two arms, two legs, head, skin color of
some "skin chip", a particular hair color, a weight between 150 and
175 pounds and male. And someone can ship you such a person and it
may not be anything near what you were expecting once you put "it" in
service. Or imagine trying to write a specification for Ketchup such
that what you get is just like Heinz rather then like Del Monte. You'd
be lucky to just get something that's more or less ketchup if you
depended on *just* the numbers, but that's what the oil is like.

 

Well…. I’m grateful for hearing your opinions but, frankly, I’m still
left hollow. Contrast to a human being isn’t appropriate because one’s
“specs” include intangible, qualitative measurements of a person.
Thus, the measuring instrument changes with the human being.

A better example would be medications. Most people are concerned
enough about their health that they want to make sure the medicines
they take meet a certain standard for effectiveness and purity.
Without that, pharmacists and drug companies would have a wilder field
day than they do now. The MAJOR criterion for generic drugs is that
the prove as effective as the original; that must be proven to the FDA
before it’s granted permission to sell an item as a substitute for,
say, Plavix. The maker of that drug is facing that very hurdle now for
2011. It’s coming; there are effective blood thinners as effective as
Plavix and that’s why they are going to be permitted to be sold.

Type 9602 ATF +4 may well have something in it that others don’t but
it has to be an “active ingredient” for it to be significant to the
task of lubricating that transmission. Though the standards for
weights and measures – viscosity and temperature range – may not be as
stringent as those imposed by the FDA for drugs, I’m pretty sure there
are standards for insuring trans oils that get labeled for use in one
transmission or another. Thank makes them liable to suit if they fail.
I don’t think manufactures are willing to do that today.

Perhaps a short cut to all this might be to look at what Chrysler has
to say about warranties and their MOPAR ATF +4. I don’t know since my
car is out of warranty but, does Chrysler reject warranty claims
purely on the basis that MOPAR ATF +4 was not used? If they do, that
would be a strong case for the belief there is something significantly
different about their fluid. If they don’t… the horse laughter was
probably justified and I’m a fool for paying such a premium.

What’s Chrysler say about such use under warranty?

 

Chrysler has to license their use of the name ATF+4. You'd think that
they would confirm in some way that the fluid is comparable in the ways
that matter before they license the name to the manufacturer or
marketer. That to me would imply that it could not be used to disallow
a warranty claim. But I'm only working from common sense, not from how
our legal system works.

 

Well, you could avail yourself of a copy of SAE Technical Paper
982674, published in 1998, and wherein Chrysler Material Standard 9602
is referenced.

 

friction and shudders is the biggest reason they went to this fluid

by the way you could just provide the OP with a hyperlink.....
http://u225.torque.net/cars/tech/trans/982674.pdf

Well, you could avail yourself of a copy of SAE Technical Paper
982674, published in 1998, and wherein Chrysler Material Standard 9602
is referenced.

 

I could have, if I'd had it handy...my copy is on my hard drive. The
OP can Google, too.

 

There are a couple of different points here --

First, you'd expect that anything meeting Chrysler's spec would work,
but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that there's a higher failure
rate with others. I don't have either the background or the equipment
to actually test the fluids, and transmissions are expensive, so I
figure it's safer to just believe it.

Second, you've also got the Dexron + a bottle of magic juice that will
convert Dexron to ATF+4. Here, first I'm very leery of anything that'll
take something that's got one additive package that gives it one set of
characteristics, and then adding a second package that'll change those
characteristics. That sounds a lot like something that might meet the
specific requirement at specific pressures and temperatures, but might
do something altogether weird elsewhere. Also, I expect there is some
range in the spec for Dexron, too -- so a bottle of magic juice that
made one brand of Dexron meet Chrysler's spec might well not make
another brand do it.

All told, I'll be a coward.

 

Interesting paper. Looks like the Chrysler 7176 fluid was crap, no
wonder they had so many transmission problems. Their new fluid looks
pretty darn good.

 

Me personally - I've read on various LH car forums *way* too many
real-life horror stories of what Dexron plus the additive do to our
transmissions.

 

Or you can use a wonderful site called "Let me google that for you."

http://www.lmgtfy.com?&q=982674 trans