sure. i followed & researched the ws vs maxlife thing too for quite awhile before i made the decision to use maxlife. my sources come mainly from searches on here & on other toyota forums like tacomas that use the same trans. there are countless people who used maxlife & said it was excellent & sometimes even fixed or improved problems with shifting or shudder etc. & of all the searches ive done, i have not read one single negative feedback on using maxlife in our toyotas or any other vehicles that claim they need the factory fluids like hondas. im sure there are some out there, but 9 out of 10 are all happy & running fine on maxlife & there are no catastrophic failures that ive ever seen related to using maxlife.

the non synthetic WS thing is pretty common, i could say "do a search" like some do, but what i found was there are multiple claims people have found msds info in cases or elsewhere saying its a standard base oil. another guy, think hes a member here or the tacoma forums, wrote a big long thing about testing it & showed it burned very quick at below average temps, like a common fluid. & he gets into how when toyota changed to WS & sealed trans there was some questionable reason behind it, i forget the specifics now but its out there to read on here or a google search. & one of the best sources for any automotive fluids info is a popular website called bobistheoilguy, members there have done all kinds of tests on oils & other fluids. there are numerous threads about maxlife & WS, maxlife is always top rated.

i agree the one size fits all sounds weird but its kinda the same as how they can make new fluids meet new specs but still be backward compatible like dex1-3, i bet a bunch of people in the 80s & 90s said, "no way im using that new fangled dex 3, my car calls for dex 2 only!" LOL. & ive seen that guy on youtube you linked to, hes an "alarmists"... he says nothing scientific & makes fun of synthetics calling it "magical" & laughing, nothing credible about what he says. he obvioulsy doesnt like maxlife & says theres no licenses... licenses are mostly bought from companies, all that means is valvoline didnt pay toyotas license fee or toyota wont license any other fluids because they want to sell you theirs?? they also dont have a GM license listed, doesnt mean it not acceptable for all previous dex specs.

personally, i have no problem trusting a major company like valvoline, who does this for a living, to engineer a trans fluid that is capable of handling multiple applications. many other big companies like amsoil offer WS compatible & acceptable trans fluids & have spent lots of money & time on the fluid development to be sure it wont harm anything & will perform to meet the requirements of the trans. they would not risk the financial loss & lawsuits if the fluid wasnt 100% safe to use.

also if WS was synthetic, i would think toyota would state that on the bottle. they sell synthetic & normal oil, but tell you when its synthetic & charge more for it.. they offer normal t4 trans fluid so if WS was a synthetic you'd think they would say that in big letters. toyota doesnt make their own fluids, its made by one of the major lubrication companies to the specs of the transmission.

aside from what i called alarmists & people with more opinions than knowledge, or the ones who just blindly follow the owners manual & think they absolutely need to use only toyota branded oils or coolant etc... i think most people with any automotive mechanical backgrounds understand that a quality brand fluid rated for or compatible with other vehicles & fluids are perfectly fine to use.

im not saying dont use WS, just saying what i used & how it performed & why i decided to use it.