Transmission flush? Good or bad?

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Hi,

I have a 2011 chevy cruze with the 6 speed auto. I have 140,000 km on it.

I think its time to change the transmission fluid.

Any of you who recommends a flush? Or just drain and fill with a full synthetic?

Thanks
 
If by flush you mean pay the nice man with the expensive pump that hooks up to the transmission cooler lines, that replaces almost all the fluid. A drain and fill gets about half. Depends on how much money you want to spend. A couple of drain and fills with some driving between them will get most of the old fluid out.
 
I'd do a pan drop filter change and line exchange of the fluid, or a pan drop filter change, with a few fluid extractions. I wouldn't pay for a "line flush" and hope they use the right fluid and do the job right. SilverFushion2010's idea will work too.
 
A "flush" is usually taking out the old fluid and putting in new fluid. Most dealers perform a "flush" as standard service and do not drop the pan. It's usually done through the transmission cooler line.


If one wants to mess up their driveway you can do the same thing using a bucket and some rubber line.
 
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Flush or pan drop, I'd use a licensed ATF for the application, which I'm guessing is Dexron VI in your application.

Member merconvvv here has posted personal doubts whether the Dexron VI specification allows a full synthetic formulation. Personally, I doubt the licensing authority would allow licensed fluids to advertise as full synthetic if the formulation didn't allow that. Dunno what you have available where you're at but if you stick yo a licensed fluid it shouldn't be a problem.

If you pay someone else to change your ATF there should be a good discussion up front on what fluid will be used. There are shops who only stock a few basic ATF variants then add stuff as top treat to supposedly convert what they just filled yourtransmission with to an equivalent fill of the manufacturer's specified ATF. I've never had a transmission flushed, and that's one of my reasons.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz2NTEAdC4vxYnE3aFFQbUhESjA/view?usp=drivesdk
 
Just drain and fill with any licensed Dexron VI
smile.gif
 
IMHO, at 140K km you are waaaay over due.
Do a drain and fill at this point. Do another D/F 30K km later.

I did a 'flush' in my driveway, evacuated ATF left in torque converter thru cooler line (at 50K km), not a drop on cement.
 
Hope that is not the first - if it has the 11mm drain plug - dump and measure - on my ramps - get 4/9 quarts (gallon) - when you see the fluid - think you will be encouraged to do it again real soon ...
If the same set up - really easy but the filter might be inside the case and not accessible ...
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I'd do a pan drop filter change and line exchange of the fluid, or a pan drop filter change, with a few fluid extractions. I wouldn't pay for a "line flush" and hope they use the right fluid and do the job right. SilverFushion2010's idea will work too.


+1, best reply. At that mileage, cleaning the pan out would be good to get material that has fallen out of suspension and not load up the new fluid immediately. However, it may not be that simple if you are planning on doing it yourself. It may not be as simple on this car.

My mother has an 07 Equinox and this was my plan, but I found the transmission placement and cooler lines were difficultly placed and had odd hose attachments; a fluid swap was not practical. At 100k (miles), I just drained and filled (MaxLife), and the transmission performance change was dramatically improved. Different transmission than yours, but similar layout and hardware is why I mention this.

If your cooler hoses are easily accessibly and do not have pipe fittings on the end, a swap can be doen at home cleanly. One method is to split open some large trash/leaf bags and lay around as a mat, and keep shop towels or paper towels around in abundance. It does not mean staining driveways if you think and plan ahead a little and go slowly.
 
As long as your tranny is working , Id just do a drain and fill. Then pan may only hold a few quarts, where the whole system will have 3 times the amount. Its nice if you have a drain bolt on the pan. Just drain and measure, re add. Do again 100 mile later, two or 3 times.

Many shops refuse to do a flush on a vehicle over 100,000 miles(without history of prior refills), too high of risk that a flush it will screw it up.

Don't worry about the synthetic [censored], just use a correctly spec'd standard fluid.
 
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I would drop the pan, replace filter, do a trans cooler line fluid replace (Dex vi) until all old fluid is gone, then call it good. At that point, you can do drain and fill at whatever interval u like best. Perhaps 60k
 
No such thing as a "flush", the "machines" are nothing but bladders and waste tanks. How do I know? I used to own one from B&G. Once I saw what they really are a bucket is all I needed after that.

You must drop the pan and change the filter first. After everything is cleaned up consider a fluid exchange right in the driveway to completely change over to new fluid.
 
Does that year model actually have a "pan" or just split aluminum case? (With drain plug).
 
The tranny flush is about $200 , I took my wifes Rv4 with 120,000 miles to Firestone(vehicle ran fine), they wouldn't touch the tranny oil with that mileage. Then went to a Ammco(specialized tranny place), they wouldn't touch it either, said tranny was full of debri, said just run it, till death. That didn't really work for me, I might as well trade the vehicle.

Then I called Toyota to do it, and they said we might refuse it too.

Screw them all, and they actually did me a favor. I bought the oil, $30, drained, the oil was discolored, but there was no heavy fiber debri like Amsoil said. (they just didn't want to mess with it, cause they already had a rav 4 in the shop with tranny ecm issues.

The pan was super easy to drain, don't even have to jack the vehicle up, poured out the waste container, totally clean. I repeted this procedure 3 times over the next couple of weeks. Actually easier than changing the regular oil.

So all these shops saved me a lot of money, 30,000 miles later everything working fine, and I don't have to rid the vehicle.
 
Remember with a flush, the pump in your transmission does the pumping of fresh ATF. The best way is to drop pan, change filter and immediately do a cooler line flush yourself.

With expensive synthetic ATF multiple drain and fills wastes a lot of ATF compared to a cooler line flush.

I would install a Magnefine inline filter when done.
 
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To Wolf_06: Is the unit shifting OK? If so simply do a drain and fill-look at the darned stuff-and resume the thought process from there.

Dark red is OK. Dark red with burnt smell is not. However you do a fluid change (multiple drain & fills or line pump out or both) there'll still be some fluid trapped in the torque converter. Some older TC designs drained out faster but others retain their fluid.

AND NO I'm not any expert on cars' TCs drain rates.

The point is that even if you perform a drain & fill and immediately do a line pump out to "clear perfection", you'll still experience a little initial soiling of the new fluid.

Just get it clean.
 
Originally Posted By: Mackelroy
The tranny flush is about $200 , I took my wifes Rv4 with 120,000 miles to Firestone(vehicle ran fine), they wouldn't touch the tranny oil with that mileage. Then went to a Ammco(specialized tranny place), they wouldn't touch it either, said tranny was full of debri, said just run it, till death. That didn't really work for me, I might as well trade the vehicle.

Then I called Toyota to do it, and they said we might refuse it too.

Screw them all, and they actually did me a favor. I bought the oil, $30, drained, the oil was discolored, but there was no heavy fiber debri like Amsoil said. (they just didn't want to mess with it, cause they already had a rav 4 in the shop with tranny ecm issues.

The pan was super easy to drain, don't even have to jack the vehicle up, poured out the waste container, totally clean. I repeted this procedure 3 times over the next couple of weeks. Actually easier than changing the regular oil.

So all these shops saved me a lot of money, 30,000 miles later everything working fine, and I don't have to rid the vehicle.


Your method was fine, and both places did you a favor not touching it. Odds are they'd fill it with a cheap bulk fluid [especially AAmco] then tweak it with an additive. That's something shops in my area do, me I want the spec fluid going into my Jeeps.

Getting 100% of the old fluid out is just about impossible. Going forward I'd do a pan drop and filter change every 30K miles, if the vehicle sees lots of highway use you could stretch it out to 50K miles. I also like to back it up with an extraction or line exchange as well, but my vehicles see a lot of stop and go use.
 
DO NOT let anyone flush your AT with one of the so called "proprietary" flushing fluids such as the BG flushing fluid.
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A drain and refill repeated three or four times should suffice. After that, drain and refill once a year. That procedure has kept the AT fluid looking like new for twelve years
 
Originally Posted By: Mackelroy
The tranny flush is about $200 , I took my wifes Rv4 with 120,000 miles to Firestone(vehicle ran fine), they wouldn't touch the tranny oil with that mileage. Then went to a Ammco(specialized tranny place), they wouldn't touch it either, said tranny was full of debri, said just run it, till death. That didn't really work for me, I might as well trade the vehicle.

Then I called Toyota to do it, and they said we might refuse it too.

Screw them all, and they actually did me a favor. I bought the oil, $30, drained, the oil was discolored, but there was no heavy fiber debri like Amsoil said. (they just didn't want to mess with it, cause they already had a rav 4 in the shop with tranny ecm issues.

The pan was super easy to drain, don't even have to jack the vehicle up, poured out the waste container, totally clean. I repeted this procedure 3 times over the next couple of weeks. Actually easier than changing the regular oil.

So all these shops saved me a lot of money, 30,000 miles later everything working fine, and I don't have to rid the vehicle.



And if anyone of them would have performed the flush and your transmission failed you would be on here complaining like crazy.

Mechanics can't win here on BITOG because the shade tree mechanics all know better.
 
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