Synthetic Transmission fluid: pro's and con's ?

[Sean]

You drive your bus 20,000 miles per year?

Yes.  We live in it full time.  We moved aboard in August of 2004, so this August will make a full five years.  At this writing we've put about 96,000 miles on it since moving aboard, and I am certain we will roll past the 100,000 mile mark by August, making it at least 20k per year, average, since moving aboard.  The bus had about 25k on the ticker when we bought it, although it was already 17 years old then, and it's got about 130k on it now, so we've actually put a total of 105,000 on it, with that first ~9k spread across the first three years we owned it.  Most of that time it was sitting in the shop being converted (again).

In that ~105,000 miles, we wore out the tires that came with it as well as a whole replacement set.  We just finished servicing the wheel bearings and the drive axle for what I would figure to be the first time in the coach's 24 year life (it is a 1985 model).  And we are, I think, about two years and 40,000 miles into our current batch of Transynd.

Incidentally, I also just changed the rear end over to synthetic when I had it serviced, and I would guess the bus will go the rest of its life without having to change that again.

That 100,000 miles, BTW, encompassed a good part of 42 states (New England being the only six of the lower 48 we have yet to cover) as well as six Mexican states.  We started chronicling the trip back in November of 2004, about three months after we moved aboard, on our web log, http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com, and pretty much every place we've been is in there somewhere.  Along with every place we got stuck or broke down, and a handful of places that buses can't go, according to conventional wisdom.

No way would I switch back to conventional ATF in my Allison HTB748.  That's just me; YMMV.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[NEO/Russ]

Not sure this is the correct forum to post it, but I have three five gallon pails of NEW Transynd that I was going to use, but now don't have that same transmission.  Contact me at my home email if you want to discuss it;  barnstormer  36 at hotmail

[JohnEd]

Barnstormer,

Your email of record is "at"GMAIL not "hotmail".

John

[NEO/Russ]

John,

Sorry about that, I do use both and they both have the same name. 

Update, the three pails have been sold.

Russ