Maintenance... Maintenance ..... Maintenance

wandererr

Adventurer
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.
 

wandererr

Adventurer
eh... might as well go for it all..... engine, both axles and tcase are all running fresh fluids. Was going to work on the rear camera but got stuck as to where I want to place it.....
 

autism family travels

Active member
Yeah as far as I'm concerned no transmission or gear oil should go more than 60k miles or 5 years I don't care what the maximum interval is. Nobody ever had to replace an engine or transmission because the lubricant was too clean and if some of my oil changes are purely recreational in nature that's fine too - better than spending the same time and money at a casino.
Agreed. I have new fluid sitting in my shop for the patriot. I need to get the dipstick so I can properly measure adding in. Sucks that there are no easy change filters. I lost a transmission in my Mazda 5 like that. They kept saying that it's a lifetime fluid. Me, being a mechanic, called bull on them. I proved them right. They installed a new transmission for free.
 

dukabor

New member
Amen....

My buddies look at me like I am from another planet when I change all fluids every year.... maybe its overkill, but when I dunk my diffs (not over the vent lines but still) I figure it's the cheapest level of insurance I can buy (I paid good $$ for the XD60's they are going to outlive me), and it is always good to go through the tranny and tcase fluid to see when that 6 speed and Rubi case are showing signs of going kabloey!
 

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