Swap out transmission filter or just let it be.

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Fort Drum N.Y
planned on changing the transmission fluid in my 2008 Mazda 5 with about 115,000 miles on it. Normally I would do the filter but this bad boy has a drain plug on the bottom of the fluid pan. Should I just do the extra work and change the filter or just change the fluid. The fluid does appear to be pretty clean still.
 
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If it has not been changed, I would put in a new filter. After than, drain and fill to your heart's content. Did one filter change on the buick in sig, then a few drain and fills. It is about to crack 300k on original trans.
 
Yes, Time for a new filter. You can still use the drain to empty out the pan. Much less of a mess.
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Originally Posted by Micahmcmeen
planned on changing the transmission fluid in my 2008 Mazda 5 with about 115,000 miles on it. Normally I would do the filter but this bad boy has a drain plug on the bottom of the fluid pan. Should I just do the extra work and change the filter or just change the fluid. The fluid does appear to be pretty clean still.


How long has the filter been in place? If it has over 1/2 your mileage (roughly 60K) I would change it. Not very expensive. The drain plug makes the job less messy.
 
Change the filter. After 115k miles there will be an abundance of clutch material in the filter and plenty of worn steels on the magnets. I am sure the owners manual has an interval and it will be less than 115k miles.
 
Originally Posted by IMSA_Racing_Fan
I agree with the magnet cleaning. Has anyone ever put two magnets in a trans pan? Also what about those oil filterwrap around magnets?


Japanese makes like using several small magnets vs Domestic with 1 or 2 larger magnets in the trans pan.
 
Originally Posted by sloinker
Change the filter. After 115k miles there will be an abundance of clutch material in the filter and plenty of worn steels on the magnets. I am sure the owners manual has an interval and it will be less than 115k miles.


The owners manual has six pages on appearance care and nothing about changing transmission fluid. Crazy.
 
Originally Posted by Donald
Originally Posted by Micahmcmeen
planned on changing the transmission fluid in my 2008 Mazda 5 with about 115,000 miles on it. Normally I would do the filter but this bad boy has a drain plug on the bottom of the fluid pan. Should I just do the extra work and change the filter or just change the fluid. The fluid does appear to be pretty clean still.

How long has the filter been in place? If it has over 1/2 your mileage (roughly 60K) I would change it. Not very expensive. The drain plug makes the job less messy.

No Idea. I but the car recently and I just assume do it to be safe.
 
Originally Posted by IMSA_Racing_Fan
I agree with the magnet cleaning. Has anyone ever put two magnets in a trans pan? Also what about those oil filterwrap around magnets?

I have two OE magnets in both of the transmission pans in my two Jeeps. I did that under the advisement of two well respected Bitog friends.
 
If the pan is easy to remove and replace, I'd drop it and change the filter and clean the magnet. If it's a pain to remove, I wouldn't bother. I have two vehicles where removing the pan is a big pain. For example, on my Escalade, the exhaust runs right under the transmission pan and you have to unbolt the Y-pipe from the exhaust manifolds so the pipe droops down enough to get the pan off. On my Sienna, some of the pan bolts are just above the subframe and you have to unbolt the transmission mount and jack the transmission up a few inches in order to get access to those bolts. I will not be removing the pan on those two vehicles again. But if all of the pan bolts are easy to access and there's nothing in the way of getting the pan off, then I'd drop the pan.
 
The old filter will have all the sluff from the transmission wear-in period so I would get it out of there. From here forward there should not be much of anything to get into the new filter unless you have a major failure, then it needs to come apart anyway. So, I would change the filter but I wouldn't bother doing it again as long as you keep up with the drain & fills.
 
Has this 2008 lived in the rust belt it's whole life? How do the pan bolts look? If they're super crusty, I'd leave it and stick with a drain/fill.

Like said above, it would be nice to get at and clean the magnets and maybe change the filter, but I've yet to see a dirty filter on a normally functioning AT. The magnets will be black mushrooms-o-goo at this point, but that doesn't mean sudden disaster.
 
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