Thread: Getting Different Stories on Transmission

Car has 115k and the automatic transmission fluid has never been changed.

Took it to one place, thinking I could just drain and refill with new. They told me no, I need a full flush and fill.

Took it to another place, they said no to the flush and no to changing the fluid as that viscosity is important to the tranny. They recommended pulling the pan, cleaning the filter and putting back my dark transmission fluid. The guy said if I did a flush and filled with new ATF on a tranny with 100k, I'm asking for transmission problems within a month.

Who's right?

I have someone coming tomorrow to do this. I have the tranny fluid, a new filter and gasket but not sure what is best to do.

From what I have seen it is a 50/50 shot that you will have issues with either way of doing it. Usually if a transmission hasn't been serviced @ 100k or above I tell customers to wait until they have issues and then do it as a last shot. The auto trans in my 96p10 started to slip @ 105 so I changed the fluid & filter @ added lucas stop slip and got another 40k out of it. Then it died just before 150k. An auto trans should be serviced regularly or not at all is how I see it as you will always be taking a risk if done that late.
Drew

Wow this reminds me how crappy Auto's are

When serviced regularly, what's wrong with an automatic?

The only auto sr20 I worked on was my P10 and I don't know how it was treated prior to me owning it. On other auto's that I have seen things can still fail when serviced properly, depending on the weak point of that particular design. Some outlast the car, automatics are a weird beast to deal with unless you rebuild trannies every day which I wouldn't really want to do as it is very tedious and delicate work.