I've had my S for a couple of months now. Getting close to passing that 60,000 mile warranty, damn already on an 06', so I figure I would do some oil analysis on all my components to make sure things check out.

I had to drop this transmission fluid early because shift quality was dropping exponentially.

I travel a lot for my job, so this fluid has 9885 miles in ONLY 68 DAYS! Thank god for mileage reimbursement.

I have one track day on this fluid, other than that I drive mostly highway.

On to the results:

Component: Transmission
Fluid: Honda MTF-2
Miles: 9885
Vehicle Miles:~52700

Wear Metals (ppm):
Al 5
B 4
Ca 2485
Cr 0
Cu 2
Fe 9
Pb 10
Mg 421
Mo 1
P 1232
K 0
Si 8
Na 5
Sn 0
Zn 1221

Oil Condition/Particle count (ISO 4406):
Water=No
Viscosity @ 100c=6.0
ISO 16/12

Wear metals look good. My main concern is the Viscosity has sheared down quite a bit, which probably explains the shift notchiness. I believe that number starts out around 11-12. Happy with the particle count, which is pretty much super clean for this compartment.

I not sure or care what the manual recommends on mileage interval but I think I'm going to stick with 10K. I'm sure the track day didn't help. LOL

 

good info interesting too know..thanks
and wow you have alot of miles i have the same exact car as you with 5,000 miles lol

 

Thanks for doing this UOA. I'm not to sure that the new MTF starts out as a 30W anymore, or if it ever did. The last time I did a drain and fill it appeared very thin and leaked out of my metal hand pump like a sieve. I might do a VOA and a UOA next time just to see what we have here.

 

Are / were you certain that this was the NEW Honda MTF or the older stuff?

 

I have two quarts of Honda MTF-2 sitting in my garage right now. I was using Redline MTL Synthetic before and I'm gonna switch over to Honda's MTF for a little bit to see what I like better.

 

I'd consider going with a shorter change interval - as in change it every time you change your motor oil.
I get less than 3000 miles on a change if I use Honda MTF. Even the updated formula seems to break down fairly quickly. My car starts getting notchy around 2500 miles. That's a big improvement over the first version of MTF though - roughly twice the longevity. I can go 5000 miles when I mix 25% Honda MTF with 75% Amsoil MTF. Straight Amsoil MTF likely can go much longer - however adding a small amount of Honda MTF seems to smooth things out a little. My car has an '04 transmission.

 

Yes, bottle said new and improved, same stuff I refilled with, light green label.

Places still selling the older stuff?

 

Just confirming is all. You could have been using your own stock from 4 years ago for all I know.

Now, we all know for sure that it was the new stuff. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. I put the fluid in a couple days before I went to the road course. I'm interested to see how long the smooth shifts last this time because I not going to the track anytime soon. Just too hot here in Texas.

The fluid broke down quickly but the wear metals and particle count still look pretty good.

I'm an engineer in maintainence support over a fleet of ~500 pieces of mobil equipment (dozers, mining trucks, etc). We do about 600-700 oil samples of month. So now I'm really into it and might consider alternatives and get samples done on those if I have to drop the trans fluid often.

 

Supra-holic Posted on Jul 28 2008, 06:52 AM

Pretty thin.
Thanks for doing the work & posting
It's lower than the thinnest gear oil speced by SAE J306 (= 7 cSt @ 100C for xxW-80)
A VOA of the MTF III would be nice.

About shifting: it IS possible that some rough shifting is due to too much play in the mechanical linkage between pedal & master, IOW you're not disengaging the clutch enough.
Easy to adjust but don't overdo it.
Also, a proper bleed of the slave is important.
Easy to do.
And, if the clutch disk is kinda "stuck on the splines" of the primairy input shaft of the trans you will get rough shifting.
Not so easy to fix....