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type of transmission fluid for MTX-75

8K views 22 replies 13 participants last post by  VillageT 
#1 ·
What is the proper type of transmission fluid for an MTX-75?
I've been looking around and have found that 75w-90 would work.
But what is "safe" for the transmission?
 
#10 ·
back when HTPerformance was around they put amsoil euro 10w40 in my tranny. that worked ok for a couple years. But i had a 3rd gear grind.

I then changed that fluid out to penzoil syncromesh , 3rd gear grind is gone and its been in for about 2 years i think with no issues.

When i change it out again , im gunna suck it up and buy the ford stuff.
 
#12 ·
When I did the cluch last year I replaced my fluid with the Ford fluid.

The trans used to have a problem popping out of 2nd gear. That problem is gone.

Also, now, once the trans is warm, shifting from gear to gear is smooth as silk. On my other Focus with the MTX it's still running the original factory fill (most likely) and shifting is a lot rougher.

$25 a quart is indeed highway robbery but the reason it's so expensive is that the additive pack is patented. As you undoubtedly know Ford does not make fluid they get a oil company to make it to their specs. The Ford MTX transmission fluid is nothing more than synthetic gear oil plus that additive package, the additive package is where all the magic is.

What Ford did here is the same thing that Chrysler did with their ATF +4. Ford went to the oil company and said "you develop a fluid for free for our specs and sell it to us for $100 a barrel for our assembly lines - and in exchange we will give you an exclusive outlet for the next 15 years for you to package and sell quarts of the stuff for whatever the heck price you want to the general public"

The oil company is free to sell their patented additive package to any fluid maker who wants to sell synthetic transmission fluid for the MTX and they do. Of course, they probably charge $24 an ounce, with 1 ounced needed to treat a quart of gear oil, which is why nobody buys it and sells a competing product.

And since people have no other source to go to than the dealer, the oil company charges whatever the heck it feels like, and the dealership tacks a fat markup on that.

Don't you love a monopoly?
 
#15 ·
if you can do the work yourself (it's not that hard) then $50 really isn't that much. a shop would charge five times that much to do it for you. and as said above; it's well worth the cost to get the right fluid now rather than have it break on you later and need a lot more money to fix it.
 
#22 ·
proper fill quantity

I just changed my factory tranny fluid with the OE-type QS and would like to state for the record that my '07 2.0 duratec with MTX-75 5spd was factory-filled with exactly 2.2 quarts of fluid. I believe the 2.1 value is either obsolete, a min spec or flat wrong. The same conclusion has been reached on a number of Mazda forums.

Here's how I know:

The tranny fluid in my 2007 car has never been touched until this week. I set my car on jackstands using a carpenter's level on the rocker panels and bumpers. It was level with in a fraction of a degree right to left and front to rear. Then I removed the tranny fill plug and NO fluid came out. Then I removed the drain plug and captured the fluid in a clean, dry pan. Then I measured the fluid removed using my wife's premium measuring cup. The quantity removed was found to be a fraction over 2qts plus 6 ounces. I then poured 2qts plus 6 oz of fluid into my tranny and it was topped off, no extra dripped out. For those who aren't sure...6oz is about 1/5 of a quart (nearly 1 cup).

PS: as a very last step, I poured the used fluid into the emptied new quart bottles. Sure enough, it was 2 qts plus 6 oz. My tranny has no leaks.

Conclusion: 2 qts is a whopping 10% less than the factory fill level on my 2007 Focus car. In my opinion, folks who are only using 2 qts are risking premature tranny failure. In addition, the 2.1 value listed in the factory literature is 5% less than the tranny allows and considerably less that what Ford put in my tranny when new. Tranny plugs are positioned at the proper level to allow excess fluid to drain out. There should be no reason to under-fill below the hole. If a specification ever existed to have oil filled to some level below the fill hole, I suspect this was a "safe minimum value".
 
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