Took it to Jiffy Lube, they wanted to change the tranny fluid. My car has 37000 miles on it. The owners manual says 60K if towing, and never if not using as a tow vehicle. Checked with the dealer and they said every 15,000! and don't exceed 30K.
So what is the straight information. 15K sounds like they are trying to make money off of me. I have an explorer with 240,000 on it with the original automatic in it. I change the fluid every 50K and have had no problems.
You should not have any problems if you follow the factory maintenance schedule. If you want to be on the safe side, change the automatic transmission fluid (ATF) every 30,000 or 60,000 miles. Your transmission may require special ATF that Jiffy Lube does not carry so check for the correct ATF in your owner's manual before letting Jiffy Lube have a go at it.
The straight information is that Jiffy Lube and similar quick-oil-change places are the worst possible place you could take your car. They have no idea what they are doing.
Ain't that the truth.........The wife took my 2002 Highlander in for an oil change one time without me knowing, week later the check engine light came on........Did a little digging around and came to find out that they broke the (not sure what it's called) protective plate where the oil is poured in (by shoving a funnel in there) and the bits of metal were laying inside. Came to find out after dropping the oil pan that some of it passed through & shredded. But we had managed to piece together the missing parts by digging around with a magnet, put it together & a tiny portion of it was only missing.......Luckily all the pieces did not fall through.
The independent lube service shops like Jiffy Lube have a vested interest in pushing 3K oil changes and 15K tranny flushes - Money.
Jiffy Lube has their crews outside waving signs when things are slow "$19.95 Oil Change Special Right Now!" - but corporate policy is to push the up-sell, and try to get at least $60.00 out of each ticket.
And they screw up customer's cars on a regular basis, and they've done nationwide stings finding out that they are selling services that they do not perform... Stay Away.
The dealers will oversell you on service if they can, too - they like money also. But they have a valuable sales franchise to lose, so they stop doing it fast if called on it.
There's no hard and fast rule - a simple automatic transmission fluid change is reasonable between 30K and 60K intervals, depending on how and where you drive. Avoid "transmission flushing" services, they can cause more harm and the shop gets to charge a LOT more for them - it's sold to you as beneficial, but sold to the shop as a "Profit Center"... Just change the fluid in the pan, that's enough to refresh the additives.
There are a few things that are NOT on the maintenance lists but should be done periodically, and are not an oversell. A notable one is you should have them 'deep bleed' the brakes to change all the old brake fluid every two years, or whenever you have brake work done. But whatever you do, DON'T call it a "Brake System Flush" or they'll raise the price for the same work... ;-)
Brake fluid absorbs moisture out of the air over time, which lowers the boiling point and rusts out the inside of the brake lines.
There is a TSB warning dealers to avoid using the deflector shield under the oil filler cap to support heavy oil fill devices like those 5 quart containers when filling oil.
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