quote:
Originally posted by bulwnkl:
Though it pains me terribly to say it, I know from hard experience with automatic transmissions in well-worked 4x4 farm pickups in the '80s, '90s, and '00s that frequent fluid changes don't do much at all for longevity.
I still change A/T fluid at least once in a vehicle's lifetime, but experience has shown me that a working automatic transmission lasts as long as it lasts and that's it; it's not dependent upon frequent fluid changes.
Truth of it is, automatic transmissions of the 80's & 90's in and of the big 3 were not all that good to begin with. Where I come from, most farm/ranch trucks were stick shifts for that very reason.
Still debating whether they have improved any, in the full-size truck department. They seem to be fine for an everyday vehicle, but when you add a load - i.e. trailer, camper, etc. light-weight or heavy, they seem to crash by around 100k miles or so and ALL of the big 3 are guilty of this trend.
If the assumption really is in the fact that all the fluid changes really will not increase life, (obviously it won't help a defective tranny from the start) I'm amazed at how many still do it anyway.
I understand clean fluids give peace of mind, but if the belief (or proof) lends to the fact that it does not increase overall life of a transmission then why bother spending the time, or shelling out the money on fluid changes?
That's just a general question - BTW.
For me, I'm still going to continue as I have, as I have a truck with a GM tranny that's already surpassed (with a hard-working life) what some people believed it wouldn't.
My belief is without the constant attention to fresh fluid every 25-30k or so, it wouldn't have lasted this long with as good of shift quality.
My Dodge is the one that concerns me, with their automatic history, I refuse to drive it in a lot of stop/go traffic for this very reason - it gets new fluid every 15k miles without fail. And, when it does hit the road, it is with a camper and trailer - so we'll see how long it lasts.