I've been stalking my two local Wal-Marts for a couple of months now, and neither carries Mobil 1 ATF at all. There aren't even any slots for them on the shelves!! I see it at the chain auto stores locally (AZ and Advance), but the Wal-Mart price was way better. Has anyone else found this to be true at their local Wal-Marts?

Have you checked Sam's Club? Wal Mart owns Sam's Clubs and I believe I've seen cases of it on the shelves in my area. IIRC your area has a Sam's Club off of Rt.3.

I'll take a look there- thanks! I'm not a Sam's member, so I'll have to see if the price is insane or not. May be better to go to the dreaded Auto Zone!

Even if you're not a member, you still might be able to get it there without being a member. I seem to remember that Sam's used to allow people to buy there without a membership, they just paid 5% above the posted prices. If the ATF is such a good price it may be worth getting it there. You could also ask someone with a membership to get it for you, or sometimes they have coupons allowing you a free visit to check around and make a purchase without committing to buying a membership.

Good info- thanks!!

So I'm reading the BITOG forums, and some are saying that M1 ATF has a new formulation, which might explain why it's been gone recently. Instead of being Mercon V specific, now it's a multi-vehicle formula. Has anyone used this new stuff, and if so, is it any different in performance? I'm not really happy with this change, and am not sure I can trust it in my vehicle anymore. Thoughts?

The last couple of fluid changes that I have done have been with the muti-vehicle stuff ... looks and smells the same ... pricey as always. I could be convinced that the "new formula" had more to do with manfgr licencing than some chemical improvement. And you can bet Ford was in the middle of the hold-out crowd.

Cool- thanks! It's probably the same stuff then. If it looks like a duck...

What means the licensing thing? If it's the same formula, it's had the qualifications for the other specs this whole time. Why the change in name only, unless they really did pull it from the market to reformulate it. I haven't seen it in the North Country for a few months now.

I have seen some posters in WalMart, last year perhaps, ... that indicated that Mobil's processing plant was devastated by Katrina, and it would take some very long while to get things back to process. Therefore Mobil was warning customers that there would be some various product shortages for some period of time.

??

Way back when, I called the tech reps at Mobil to see if their product was/would ever be OK'd by/for Ford MerconV transmission use. His response was pained! He indicated that Ford would never approve Mobil's product. Just couldn't get the necessary buy-offs for whatever reason. Sounded political. And yet, in less than one year ... it was approved! Who knows what went on behind the scenes?

I have been using it even before it "met" MerconV specs.

That's very interesting. I had heard that their capacity was hit pretty hard by one of those hurricanes. It's been 4 years since Katrina, however. Actually, since I can get it at the other stores (AZ, Advance), I think it's just a Wal-Mart thing.

Ok, I ended up buying 6 quarts at my local AutoZone. Here's what the old one looked like (it's fuzzy- sorry!):
http://davepear.wordpress.com/files/2009/06/mobil-1-001-sm1.jpg

Here's the new one:
http://davepear.wordpress.com/files/2009/06/mobil-1-002-sm1.jpg

There doesn't appear to be any difference besides packaging. The old stuff was the multi-vehicle formula too (if you can see it on the bottle). It said 'fully synthetic', just the new one. It was for Ford, GM and most other vehicles. It looks, smells and feels exactly the same. You can't mistake that dirty, sweaty smell for anything else!! Even the bottle shape is exactly the same, with a different color scheme and label. So it's exactly the same stuff.

I made a mistake in the job I did yesterday, though. First, I didn't get enough fluid. I went through this last year, too, and you'd think I'd remember (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=897838). With a deployment in the middle of that, though, I'm not surprised. So far I have 6.25 quarts of M1 in there and it's not even showing up on the dipstick (at operating temperature, in idle, shifted through all gears, level ground). I'll get those weird little strips of fluid on the stick, but it's where the bottom of the stick is dry and it shows up about halfway up the crosshatched area. Last year, I had to add aboout 1.5 Q ABOVE the 6, THEN added about 20 oz. of Lucas Trans Fix. That's a little over 2 quarts (32 oz.=1 qt.) over and above the 6 that everyone says comes out. By the time I added all this, the dipstick only showed fluid at the bottom of the cross-hatched area. I'll post back on here once I figure out exactly how much fluid it takes to get it well into the cross-hatched area. Someone on the other thread mentioned a TSB that said to put the fluid to the 'tippy-top' of the fill area. I can't find said TSB. Does anyone have access to AllDataDIY to look that up?