Hi, I understand there are 2 schools of thought on changing transmission fluid. Some say change it every 36k miles and some say if its working fine dont bother changing it. I have a 97 3.1v6 GA with 107k miles. I had my fluid changed once at 50k miles. The car runs great and I was wondering should I take a chance and change the fluid or just keep driving it?
Maybe if we define the schools of thought, you can make your own informed decision.
School 1: Follow manufacturer's recommendations (in the Owner's Manual) School 2: Listen to wild crazy stories from people you barely know.
GW
booboo wrote:
I always thought ya just get it flushed when it starts to turn wierd colors.
I always thought that you if you leave it alone for a bit (well...like 75k or 100k miles I think) then change the fluid it'll be worse for the transmission.
When I left Canada and moved to the US, this spring, I went to Walmart and had the oil changed and thought I might as well get the transmission flushed now as well. I had about 90,000 KM on it at the time. They said they could flush it as long as it did not have over 150,000 KMs on it, 93750 Miles. They said it was time to flush it, and he also mentioned that it was one of the easiest cars to flush out as well. When I get to about 90,000 miles I will have a new filter put in and have to bands checked. It still is working fine.
What kind of car was it? Please use miles instead of KM.
You should NEVER get the fluid changed without getting the filter changed!!!!! Lots of places are scamming people by just changing the fluid by sucking it out of the dipstick tube and then putting new fluid in. When this is done it allows the crud that has accumulated on the filter to come loose and get into the internals of the tranny! Find a reputable local transmission shop and you will probably find that they will do the WHOLE job (fluid, filter, clean the pan, new gasket, etc. for the same money as the "quick lube" places charge for just sucking the fluid!
its a 99 Sunfire 90 K's would be about 56000 Miles
Yes I have seen it done that way, and I asked them if that was the way that they did it. It wasn't. They took off the lines to do it.
That second school of thought has been closed down for years. Many years ago, owner's manual didn't give a service interval for transmission fluid. But nobody gets by with that any more.
Have you actually busted open one of those filters and find anything=20 trapped by it? Its got the consistency of a scrub pad...=20
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-Bon=B7ne=B7ville
-Formerly known as
-Bonnevilles R Kewl
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Some filters are made like that. Others are made more like an air or oil filter. And yes, I HAVE found substantial amounts of shavings and crud on tranny filters before. In any case, you should ALWAYS change the filter when you change the fluid. I don't know anyone who actually changes their motor oil without changing the oil filter. So just because it's a little more difficult to change the tranny filter it's ok not to change it when you change the fluid?
Have you actually busted open one of those filters and find anything trapped by it? Its got the consistency of a scrub pad...
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-Bon·ne·ville
-Formerly known as
-Bonnevilles R Kewl
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