By marketing "special" fluids for these less than perfect engines and transmissions, the margins generated can cover a significant part of the warranty costs of replacing defective units
Yup,…GM and Ford’s been doing it for 30+ years.
I’m not certain that I would categorize these engines and transmissions as “less than perfect”. I remember when Ford used “type F” automatic transmission fluid and GM cars used Dexron. I also remember years ago that my parents had a 1952 Dodge with the “lift and clunk” Gyromatic semi-automatic transmisison. The car reached a point when you let up on the accelerator for the transmission to shift, it shifted with such a jerk that you were practically thrown out of the seat. Their mechanic found the transmission was low on fluid, so he added automatic transmisison fluid. The car got better for a while, and then really got worse when it shifted. The dealer replaced the transmisison fluid with the proper lubricant–10 weight non-detergent oil. That solved the problem.
This goes back 60 years that fluids were different for different transmission applications.
Update:
The mechanic who put the wrong fluid in paid to have the car towed to his shop, replaced the transmission with a used transmission that had 60k and a 3 month warranty AND gave us $400 to pay for our rental car.
We are happy with this. In the last 3 years, we have only put an average of 10k on the car per year. So if this transmission is not a lemon, we could drive it for 4 more years and be back at the 100k mark.
Let’s cross our fingers.
Thank you for letting us know the outcome, Anne.
In all too many cases, we don’t find out how things turned out for the car owner, so I really appreciate your feedback.
I believe that the “settlement” you received was reasonable, and I hope that you enjoy several more years of Happy Motoring with this vehicle.
Many car makers have extended valve adjustment intervals but that doesn’t necessarily translate into what’s best for the car and optimum performance.
Recommended and needed are 2 different things. Often things are “close enough” and many consider that “good enough”.
If a valve lash spec is .010 +/- .002 then my preference is that it be on .010, not all over the map from .016 down to .002.
(For what it’s worth, in a lot of routine valve lash inspections even on low miles cars I’ve often found valves hovering around that .002 figure and that’s valve face/seat burning territory, all depending.)
I will continue to go to this mechanic and I will have the cvt fluid changed every 30 k.
I got 275k out of my CVT before it just stopped working. It had probably reached it life expectancy so I had a used on put in. The shop used some other brand of CVT fluid and it chattered badly. I made him drive the car and we did not get out of the parking lot before he admitted there was something wrong. He changed the fluid to Honda’s CVT fluid and it as work fine since.
OK4450- ,010 +/- .002 would result in valve lash readings from .012 to .008.
A major part of the total technology of a metal belt CVT is in the fluid.
“010 +/- .002 would result in valve lash readings from .012 to .008”
That’s true right after the adjustment is made, but after 105,000 miles (the interval Honda was recommending for awhile) that lash could drift to .002-.016.
Now I understand your comment.