On 7/14/2010 1:45 PM, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
Fresh fluid NEVER hurts an automatic. If it fails after a fluid
change or flush using the CORRECT FLUID, it was going to fail
anyways.(unless whoever changed the fluid did something else and
screwed things up)
From my own experience; and from many other peoples 'opinions', not so.
Mine's not a totally bad one, just irritating.
Unless it's been flushed from fairly early on; under higher
mileage/use/conditions; the more likely there's going to be various
cruds sitting in various nooks and crannies on the transmission housing.
'Cruds' could be sludge bodies, metal shavings, little unwanted parts
left in at the factory....
Flushing drags them out of hiding. Depending on what popped it's head
out, damned near anything can happen.
AFAIK; my oughty-ought Outback got it's first flush at 99K miles. I did
it as "preventative maintenance" as I didn't know the whole service
history when I bought it at same 98K. I wasn't having any problems with
the trans before in the 3 months I had it.
And YES; it was the CORRECT fluid and done right. I know the shop that
did it very well. They are about 2 blocks from where I work.. and
there's a big customer base involved as they know the word gets around
real quickly when they screw up. They've been in business for 50+ years.
They did a reflush for free. Still have
I'm fairly lucky; whatever came loose during the flush only causes
"morning sickness" of not going into a forward gear (not reverse) when
started cold. It's "liveable with". On this one, it's not the
anti-drainback valve for the torque converter (reverse is OK..).
I've tried various additives and found that SeaFoam Trans Additive works
for ~2-4 months. It's a "solvent-type" mouse milk. I've tried the thick
goo like Lucas trans additive, no luck.
BTW, same trans shop buys me the SeaFoam.
Manager (who's the present owner and came up from the ranks as a
wrench-spinner there ) says there's about 1 out of 80 hi-mile trannies
that have problems. Out of those, it all depends on the year/make/model
of transmission what the results are. If it's traditionally a "grenaded"
trans, they severely advise against it. Others are on a case-by case
basis. Howard says this is the second Soobie 4EAT that's given
post-flush problems since he started. The other was a "grenade" that had
a clutch-band disintegrate.. shit happens.
In all reality, a flush problem is rare. How many of us here who've
*NOT* had a flush problem said so? This ain't Twitter, and I don't think
many of us who use newsgroups are going to shout out to everyone when we
had successful work done on a car problem that wasn't in a current
discussion.
One "Aw Shit" trumps one thousand "AttaBoys".