Week ago at 66K and 9 years i finally got around to replacing the automatic transmission fluid and filter. I had the filter and fluid in the garage nearly 3 years now and always kept finding reasons to do it later as this is slightly more involved then the standard oil change.
Anyways - picked up a vacuum pump gismo to drain as much fluid through the dipstick tube as possible making the dropping of the transmission pan an easy and clean job.
Long story short: even though the fluid looked pretty nice, darker then new but definitely not burnt after refilling (no, I did not go through any efforts of draining the torque converter as that's more involved and the fluid really did not look that bad) I took a longer trip on the freeway and while dealing with traffic, congestion, speeding up and slowing down I have to say that I noticed the following:
- easier/smoother shifting
- more responsiveness
- about 15% improvement in fuel economy
It's easy to overlook the AT and say: nah... It's clean enough so I can postpone it, but there is a reason that there is a maintenance schedule
Anyways, looking at my notes, I'll have to do my diffs next as it's been a while as well.
Anyways - picked up a vacuum pump gismo to drain as much fluid through the dipstick tube as possible making the dropping of the transmission pan an easy and clean job.
Long story short: even though the fluid looked pretty nice, darker then new but definitely not burnt after refilling (no, I did not go through any efforts of draining the torque converter as that's more involved and the fluid really did not look that bad) I took a longer trip on the freeway and while dealing with traffic, congestion, speeding up and slowing down I have to say that I noticed the following:
- easier/smoother shifting
- more responsiveness
- about 15% improvement in fuel economy
It's easy to overlook the AT and say: nah... It's clean enough so I can postpone it, but there is a reason that there is a maintenance schedule
Anyways, looking at my notes, I'll have to do my diffs next as it's been a while as well.